The Worst Day Since Yesterday
by opera.74
Summary: How Rumpelstilskin became Mr Gold? The story of the first week of Mr Gold's life in Storybrook and his coming to terms with his new self. The title is an Easter Egg for Robert Carlyle's fans: it is a song featured in SGU soundtrack.
1. Chapter 1

THE WORST DAY SINCE YESTERDAY

1

He wakes up in the morning and feels trapped, enveloped in grey mistiness of a sunless, lightless day. There are days when the sky is virtually the same color all the time, the same dull grey in the morning, afternoon and twilight – and pitch-dark at night. The clouds are thick and low, they seem to have a weight – they seem to physically press on one. Yet it never rains, and there is no proper wind – just occasional bursts of it; the air shifts erratically, whirling discarded papers on street corners, capturing dry fallen leaves and making them slide across the pavement with a weird tingling sound. The rain or the proper wind, if they would come, might bring with them some sense of release – some change, at least. But they never come, and the day remains still, unmoving, depressing.

It is such a day today. He knows it even before he opens his eyes – he just feels it in the air. He doesn't want to open his eyes, actually – there is not that much to see around to make it worth the effort. So he stays in bed for a while, awake but with his eyes closed, listening to the small sounds of the world around him; the ticking of an old clock standing in the corner of the bedroom, the cricking of some floorboards, which is always present in old houses, the buzzing of a late autumn fly in the next room; his own breathing. He lies very still, trying to keep the warmth; it is cold in the room, for yesterday, before going to bed, he left the window ajar: he hates the way air gets stiff in a closed room. Yet as the weather outside is cold and humid, the room is chilled now, and his bed feels ice-cold apart from the places where he warmed it – if he moves an arm or a leg, the sheets are cold as the inside of a grave.

Still not opening his eyes, he smiles a little twisted smile at the absurdity of his thought. How does he know what the inside of a grave feels like? It's not as if he had ever been in one.

Well, if he is smiling and is ready to appreciate irony, then he might as well open his eyes. He does that, and the world is just as he expected it to be – grey. The ceiling of his room is grey, the fluffy bit of cobweb in the corner over the wardrobe is grey. The rectangle of the window – the piece of sky that shows in the upper frame that is visible from his bed, the one that he can see without making an effort of turning his head – is grey.

That bit of fluff in the corner – it is strange. He could have sworn he removed it yesterday. There can _be_ no cobwebs in his house – he would never tolerate it, he is very tidy, even obsessively so. Yet there it is, in the corner, visible and very present. Perhaps he missed it, after all. Perhaps it was dark and he just missed it. That happens – even he can miss a bit of fluff in the dark corner.

Nevertheless, the irritation at this bit of cobweb makes him purse his lips. He is absurdly angry with himself for having missed it, and his body is filled with restlessness. He cannot stay in bed doing nothing with this bit of fluff sticking out as a sour thumb. He has to get up.

He lifts the blanket (linen, of course, no other kind is fit for a gentleman) and the duvet, which is dull purple, very muted and pleasing for the eye. The chilled air makes him shiver momentarily, but he ignores it: better that than the suffocating stiffness of the night air in an over-warm room, air filled with the smell of dust and his own sleeping body. He sits on the edge of the bed and glances at the window. Yes, the day is just as he expected it to be – grey and still, the clouds practically touching the glass, the withered leaves on top of the nearby trees just visible, looking as a blurred yellow smudge on an old watercolor. His eyes leave the window, and he looks at his legs, clad in silk pajama trousers, navy blue with thin white stripes, cut slightly longer then traditional pajama trousers, for he firmly believes that, just as proper suit trousers, pajama trousers should _not_ show the ankle. Not that anyone would ever have a chance to see his pajama trousers or his ankles, but the point itself is important. His pajamas are exactly the right length to satisfy him, and to hide his misshapen right calf and ankle. He does not like the look of his leg. Whoever was fixing him after the accident did it badly. Strangely, he doesn't remember the event, which left him a cripple – was it some road accident or a fall, grave enough to give him a memory loss? Did it happen when he was a child? He doesn't remember. Doesn't remember falling, or feeling the pain. Doesn't remember being in a hospital, recovering.

Come to that, he doesn't remember being a child.

Whatever – the sight of his injured leg makes him uneasy, dissatisfied – as if it was somehow his fault. It is absurd – no one can be blamed for being injured – but the feeling is there every time he looks at the scars and the slightly twisted bone, which never healed properly and always aches in bad weather, such as today.

He sighs; well, one has to live through a day no matter what the weather is like. The soles of his bare feet touch the carpet – he likes the feeling, so he pauses a moment before finding his brown leather slippers – they are cold on the inside, chilled out as everything else in the room. Then he reaches for the cane, which stood all night by the side table. He has to lean on it quite heavily to stand up.

He limps towards the wardrobe, over which the offending fluff is hiding, and reaches to remove it with the end of the cane. This will not do – he has to wrap something around the cane – a cloth. To get the cloth, he will have to go out to the kitchen downstairs. Oh, this is so frustrating. He looks around irritably, searching for something – there is nothing in the room that can help him. With an angry sigh he takes a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket; this will have to do, he'll wash it later, or throw it away.

Now, there it is: the fluff is removed. He puts the crumpled handkerchief on the table, and walks towards the window. He opens it wider, ignoring the sudden gust of wind, and throws the fluff out. Much better. This is much, much better. Now he can start the day properly.

Yet he pauses at the window for several long moments, looking out into the garden. It is not a proper garden – he is not a man to potter with plants or flowers. But there is a spot of grass, and several apple trees, and a cherry, which never brings any fruit, and a rosebush. A look at it makes him smile; the stubborn plant sports a lonely flower – a tiny white rose, almost a bud. The last flower of the year. The little fighter, destined to die out in the cold.

Why does looking at it make him so sad? He feels an unexplained inner ache – an irrational regret, as if he has seen something like this flower, a long time ago, and knows that it blooms in vain. There is an indistinct recollection of some loss in the sight of this little white rose. He feels it, yet he is unable to place it.

He shuts the window.

His bathroom is connected to his bedroom by the oak door, varnished dark to match the rest of the woodwork in the room. His is an old house, and the bathroom used to be in the end of the corridor, but he had it rebuilt so as not to have to walk unnecessarily. He glances at his robe, which in the evening he left over a chair by the bed, and picks it up.

In the bathroom he pauses briefly, deliberating whenever to take a shower or a proper bath. He chooses the shower; a bath requires an easy relaxed mind, and his has been troubled with something, be it cobwebs or dying roses, since the moment he woke up today.

He strips quickly, unbuttoning his pajama top, taking it off and putting it on a chair. He takes off his trousers in two stages; first the bad leg, standing up, then the good leg – for that he has to sit down on the chair briefly. It is amazing with how many rituals a handicapped person's life is filled.

His bath is an old-fashioned Victorian model – a proper bath with partial walls covering the shower compartment, which you have to close with a narrow door so that the water wouldn't splash all over the room. Getting into it is an intricate business; he has to leave the cane by the sink, lean on the side of the bath, bring his bad leg over and then, supporting himself by the handle especially put on the wall, bring over the other leg. Once in the bath, he negotiates the copper taps – they look so ancient it is a wonder that the water mixes normally, but it does.

He takes his shower extremely hot – it helps to ease the tension in his muscles, which feel constricted most of the time, affected by the limp that makes him balance his body in an awkward way. As a result something – his back, his shoulders, or the overworked good leg – is always aching.

For several minutes he stands under the hot water leashing out at him, relishing the sting, feeling the tension relax a bit. He closes his eyes, letting the water run over his uplifted face.

It would have been nice to stand in the rain like that – face up towards the sky, feeling the raindrops kiss him, not gently, biting almost; but even biting kisses, light and fresh, would have felt nice.

Perhaps it will rain today.

He turns the water off, opens the narrow shower door, and reaches for the towel, which is hanging on a peg calculatedly close to the bath. The small room is filled with steam.

Slowly, methodically he dries himself up, everything except the feet – he will have to dry them sitting on the chair, after he got out of the bath. When that is done, he walks to the sink and wipes the steamed-up mirror with a towel. He has to shave and to brush his teeth, and that requires looking at himself.

His own face is always a bit of a surprise for him. It's not that he doesn't like himself – his face is a normal enough face, brown-eyed, long-nosed, narrow-lipped, bony, as is the rest of him, wrinkled, yes – but then, he is an old man. It is just that every time he looks at himself in the mirror he expects to see some other face. Not younger or handsomer – just… different. That is weird – this feeling of expecting to be somebody else is usually associated with youth, when a person doesn't really know himself yet and every self-evaluation is a chance to discover and dream up new possibilities. Yet he has it every time. Every time meeting his own eyes in the mirror he thinks: 'This is wrong'.

Perhaps it is the loneliness. It plays strange tricks with one's mind.

Discarding the thought, he attends to the task of making himself presentable. He picks up a comb – a vintage one, dating from the 1940s, ivory in a silver casting, and combs his wet hair, wondering if may be it is time for a haircut, but deciding against it. Now, the shaving – the shaving set is matching the comb, also ivory and silver. He shaves with a proper blade, of course – all these electrical things are an abomination of nature and completely unacceptable. He shaves very carefully – he hates the cuts, breaking the skin is something which irritates him almost as much as the stiff air. He is very conscious of his body, and very careful about hurting himself.

Once done, he picks up the robe and puts it on. Wraps it tightly and ties the belt.

His robe is velvet, dark red with a black collar and lapels. The belt is also black. The silk lining is red.

He likes the feeling of the soft cool fabric against clean naked skin.

He walks back to the bedroom, collecting the pajama on the way and putting it, neatly folded, under the pillow. He then smoothens the bed, adjusting the coverlet, making it tidy – one thing has to be finished before the other begun. Life has to be lived methodically, step by careful step. One learns that if one is crippled.

He opens the wardrobe and has a long look at its contents. Choosing a shirt is one of the most important moments of the day – it sets the mood for everything. He has dozens of shirts, silk and cotton, almost all of them colored, many of them striped – dressing around a white shirt is too easy and no fun at all.

Today, he picks up a dark plum-colored cotton shirt. The uncertain, complicated color would fit the weird mood he is in – he realizes, not for the first moment today, that he is not his normal self, what with the cobwebs and roses and these strange thoughts of kissing raindrops.

Taking the shirt off its hanger, he takes it to the bed and leaves it on the coverlet. He limps to the chest standing at the left side of the window and opens the upper shelf. Dark shirt means dark underwear – black boxers, mixed fabric, very soft. Now, socks – that's the middle compartment. It is full of socks, all neatly folded in matching pairs, as if they were new. Pausing over them, he gives an irritable sign and glances towards the wardrobe: he should have chosen a tie first, what was he thinking of? Well, he has only three ties that will go with the shirt he picked, so he runs through them mentally. The very dark metallic grey one with very small golden spots – yes; it will pick up the brownish hue in the plum color of the shirt rather nicely. But, if the tie is grey, that means that the socks should be of warmer color – offsetting the coldish tone that the tie and the suit (also dark grey one, that is obvious, given the color of the shirt) would project. So, brown socks, then – very dark brown. With a black band. And black garters, of course – the garters are a must, the socks should always be held up just below the knee, there is nothing more disgusting than a showing of an ankle, which can happen to the best of us if the sock is not held up properly.

Socks and underwear chosen, he limps back to the bed to dress up, at last. He takes off the robe, stands by the bed naked for a second, avoiding looking at himself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door; he is not a person to enjoy looking at himself, and his body is not a pleasing sight. He puts on his underwear as quickly as his bad leg would let him: sitting on the bed first, then standing to pull the boxers up. Now the shirt – leave it unbuttoned for now so it would not obstruct his movements. Now the socks; sitting down again, bending the bad leg first, painfully. Then a walk to the wardrobe for the suit. Back to the bed to put the trousers on; an operation that also can be performed only sitting down. Now, with no more bending in sight, it is finally possible to button the shirt. This one has buttons on the cuffs as well, so there is no need to choose the cuff links. Right. Now, the tie he set himself on – picking it up from the rack on the inner side of the wardrobe door, he gives a satisfied smile; it is a perfect choice. It is no minor achievement, that, picking a tie mentally out of his collection – he has and incredible number of them: the rack has three rows, filling the door vertically, and all of them are full.

With the tie on, he finally turns to look at himself in the mirror.

This will do. Yes, this will do very nicely indeed.

There is one more action that requires bending, and which he forgot about – putting on his shoes. Cursing under his breath, he sits on the bed to tie the strings of the perfectly polished black pair that goes with the suit naturally.

Now, when the essentials are done, he picks up the suit jacket, hanging it over the left elbow and, cane in the right hand, limps downstairs towards the kitchen.

And realizes that he is not hungry – not in the least. To check himself, he opens the fridge and surveys the contents. Eggs, cereal, bacon, butter, a carton of milk, jam, vegetables… Nothing looks appealing. Perhaps he should have some toast?

Oh, damn the bloody toast. He doesn't want any toast. He doesn't want anything.

What's the point of cooking breakfast if you are alone?

This will not do. This strange mood has to be broken somehow. And there is no way to do it but to carry on as if everything is normal. And that means he will have to have some breakfast, even if the very thought of it makes him feel sick.

Oh well, may be just a cup of tea, then.

He puts the kettle on the gas fire (no electrical kettles for him, thank you, they are so vulgar and the water tastes completely wrong), takes a brewing pot off the shelf and puts it by the sink – he would have to warm it first before putting tea in it. The tea box is right here, on the shelf with other spices and sugar and salt. Why does he keep such a lot of cooking stuff in the house, anyway? Just to pretend that his life is normal and he _needs_ all that?

Gosh, what's got over him today, for God's sake?

Shaking his head, he walks towards the cupboard where he keeps his china. He will need a cup if he is going to have that tea. He has a lot of cups and plates and saucers – again, why so many? It is not that anybody ever comes to see him here and needs to be offered any kind of refreshments.

Without looking, he reaches for the nearest cup and takes it. It has uneven rim – why, it is chipped; the sharp edge just very narrowly misses cutting the pad of his index finger. Irritated, he brings the offending item closer to his eyes to inspect the damage. Yes, there is a small triangular bit of the rim missing – the little cup must have fallen on the floor…

 _And suddenly he sees it – sees the cup as it falls, in slow motion, slipping from her fingers and landing on the carpeted floor with a very soft thud, and rolling a few inches away from the hem of her yellow dress._

His heart clenches, and his breath catches as if he was stifling a sob. He is crushed by sudden, irrational grief – struck by it, paralyzed and buried under it. It is as if the grey oppressive sky of today had finally fallen on him, and proved to be as leaden as it looked.

The grief is real – so real that it seems capable of killing him on the spot with a pain as intense as if he was having a heart attack. Yet the reason for it is unfathomable.

What was that – what did he just saw, or thought he saw? _Her_ fingers? The hem of _her_ dress? _Yellow_ dress? Who is _she_? He is imagining some girl in a yellow dress, breaking his cup, and for some reason it is so sad that he feels stricken.

But there is no girl. Never was. Never could be.

The kettle behind his back whistles shrilly, and that brings him back to his senses.

He closes his eyes momentarily, shakes his head, getting rid of the lingering vision. Then he puts the chipped cup back on the shelf, takes a normal one, and goes to brew himself some tea.

When the teapot is washed, used tealeaves discarded (he never keeps brewed tea in the pot, it is pointless, the tea is dead in a hour after it was brewed), and the cup is also washed and left to dry by the sink, he is ready to go out.

He puts on a dark coat, picks a cane. Shuts the front door, glancing idly on the colored glass panel with which it is decorated and wondering when will it be sunny so that the colored glass would actually give some pleasure to the eye? Today it feels like it was never sunny in this town, and it will never be sunny again.

Well, he has no time to linger on the porch. He has a long day ahead of him. Today is the payday – the day when he collects the rent from the numerous people to whom he leases property. And he has to make the calls. Of course, he could have made them come to the shop and bring the money with them. Perhaps that would have been a natural thing, given his limp and his advanced age. But he prefers to do the rounds personally. There are several reasons for that. First, he feels a strange unwillingness to see too many people in the shop. It is a very cozy and private place, his shop. He doesn't want all these feet trampling over it, angry voices calling for him, disgruntled moods leaving their trace in the atmosphere of the place. Second, he likes the sense of power making those visits installs in him. People know he will come today – they don't know when exactly, so they are jumpy and apprehensive, glancing at the door, cursing him silently. Time goes, he doesn't come, and then, just when they relax a bit, thinking that perhaps he has forgotten about them and their debts, there he is, knocking at their doors, and just standing on the threshold, saying nothing – just looking at them with a little smile. Always extremely polite, and totally unshakable in his determination to get what they owe him. They grow pale, and sometimes the hands with which they give him money are shaking.

He wonders why that is so. The rent he exacts is harsh, but not unreasonable. He never asks for more than they can give. He is not some heartless monster, is he? He is just their landlord.

Perhaps they resent the fact that he owns them. And the fact that he owns them rather cheaply makes it all the more irritating.

Well, he doesn't expect to be loved by them. He is a difficult man to love. He asks only to be respected. And he is. He is feared, also. But that is not a bad thing, really. Fear is an indication of some emotion, at least – it is better to be feared than ignored. And sometimes, waking up alone in his lonely house, having his lonely walk around town, staying alone in solitude of his shop, he does wonder if he exists at all. Wonder if he is anything but an unsubstantial shadow, hovering around without any human interaction: seeing but unseen, feeling but unfelt, living but unnoticed. He also wonders sometimes what exactly did he do wrong with his life to end up in such isolation; no children, no friends, no relatives, not even a distant memory of any significant friendship. It seems that nothing ever mattered to him but his comfort, and his things. He is worse then Scrooge – no Ghost of Christmas Past can upset him, for his life seems to have been so empty that he has nothing to regret, even.

Yet it seems that he likes it that way. Given his unwillingness to contact anyone when such contact is not strictly necessary, the hostility that people in town project towards him is not surprising. Surprising is the twisted pleasure, which he draws from their resentment. Their hostility doesn't upset him; their fear pleases him. In fact, if any of them showed him any affection that would baffle him. And irritate him, as well: who are they to try and get friendly with him? They are nothing. Just a bunch of fools – unpleasant, dishonest, self-important, like those pious nuns, for example, or this flower-shop owner the mere sight of whom makes his skin crawl. He has every right to own them, to scare them, and to play with them as a cat plays with a mouse.

He never really thought about all that, so why now? Oh, it is such a strange day today. It makes him think the strangest thoughts.

It would have been perfect if he could only interact with townsfolk on his terms – when they come to the shop to pawn something, or when they pay him the rent. Unfortunately there are other things in life. A necessity to eat, for example – made all the stronger by the fact that he couldn't bring himself to swallow anything in the morning. That means that now he will have to come to the Granny's Diner for some food – terribly overpriced and over praised, by the way.

When he enters the Diner, a silence falls around him. It is very brief, but noticeable. Well, the place is full of people whom he visited already, or is going to visit later today. Granny included. She gives him a sour look and charges additional dime for the pickles he asks with his burger. Then she gives him another look, questioning – is he going to ask for the rent now? Well, no: for this show of hostility he decides to postpone the rent collection from her till the evening. Let her stew a bit more, the old hag.

He cannot recall the reason for the animosity between himself and the Diner's owner. Must be something going back such a long time that none of them remembers it properly.

He eats in silence, alone at a window table. No one speaks to him, but then Regina Mills stops by the table – sits down even, without an invitation from him. But that is very much like her.

She gives him a smile – flashy, yet a bit uncertain, it seems. 'Well, Mr. Gold, how are you today?'

'Very well, thank you, Madam Mayor'. Shall he put her off? He doesn't want to talk to her, not really. But then, it is probably better to learn what she wants.

'Great day, isn't it?' Her eyes are shining – there is definitely something on her mind, but there is no way of telling what it is yet.

He shrugs his shoulders. 'I don't see anything particularly great about it. Seems like a perfectly ordinary day to me'.

'Does it?' She is having some inner joke, now he is sure of that. Yet he has no idea what is it that makes her so happy.

'Indeed it does'. The only thing he can think of is to keep up this meaningless conversation until she gets bored.

'Well, if you say so'. She smiles again, looking at him attentively, and says suddenly: 'Nice tie. Very smart'.

He inclines his head a little, slightly embarrassed by this rather personal remark. 'Thank you. I must confess that it is a little difficult to procure proper ties in this part of the world. The State of Maine is not particularly famous for the fashion sense of its inhabitants. Can you do something about it, please?'

He meant this as a joke – a general conversational banter, uttered only for the lack of anything meaningful to say. Yet at his words Regina pales, very slightly. 'About what – improving the fashion sense?'

'No', he has to smile at her obvious and odd distress. 'No, just about getting better ties. You are the mayor, after all'.

'Yes', she creases her brows – her light mood is gone. 'Yes, I am. Well, it was nice seeing you'.

She stands up and walks out.

Mystified, he finishes his coffee and leaves, too.

Here comes the best part of the day – he goes to his shop. It is amazing how comfortable he feels here – much better than at home, actually. The collection of things and trinkets he has here is bizarre, but somehow it seems to possess some inner logic; all these things _have_ to be here, they all have a place and a reason to exist and even perhaps a soul. Yes, that's right – they seem almost alive to him. Alive, and friendly.

What sort of man feels better among old junk then he does around people? What does that say about him?

He doesn't want to dwell on that – he is too tired, too oppressed by this strange cloudy day. He needs to occupy his mind and his hands with something pleasant. Well, there is always something to fix and to repair among his numerous curiosities.

He limps around the shop, very slowly, picking a thing that would appeal to him most. This lamp needs cleaning – no, not today, it is too simple and boring. This clock has stopped – but he is not up to the task of dismantling an old clock today, he is too restless for that.

He stops by the bookshelf, letting his fingers run along soft leather spines of numerous old volumes. One of them attracts his particular attention – it is an old book, very tattered, bound in dark red leather, golden lettering almost worn off. Some pages are falling out. Yes, that's what he shall do; this book needs its' binding fixed, and it is a nice occupation that would make him concentrate, but will not irritate.

He picks the book and goes to the back of the shop, to his office – he has a working desk here. It is a very comfortable place. And if anybody comes to the shop, he'll hear the doorbell.

He sets to work, and soon he is completely absorbed by it. The book is a collection of old fairy tales, nicely printed and with very good illustrations. It would make a fine gift for some very special child – the one that will be able to appreciate it. A child with active imagination, which will make all these stories come alive. He wonders if there is such a child in Storybrook.

For a second, bending over a slightly torn page, concentrating on pinning the paper down so he can glue the torn bit back on, he lets his mind wander, and he seems to see this child – holding the book in small, rather dirty hands, leafing through the pages eagerly. It is a boy, a small boy, talkative and curious.

 _It is a boy. Oh, it is a boy. What is his name?.. A strong name! He will need a strong name to live with a shame of being your son._

 _There is a small, smiling, trusting face – a child's face. There is a small hand reaching to touch him. Do not worry, son, your papa is here…_

And there it comes again – the pain, the same pain that he felt this morning over a chipped cup – sharp and sudden and baffling. He stands over the book, panting, his fingers gripping the side of the table.

What's come over him? What is happening to him? Is he going mad?

He can't work any more today. His eyes hurt, his back is aching, and his mind is troubled. It is too late, anyway – it is dark outside. Time to go home. He just has to stop by Granny's hotel, and collect that rent, which he didn't take in the afternoon. It is a long walk, and he is not really up to it now, but that serves him right; if he were kinder to the old lady earlier, he wouldn't have to exert himself unnecessarily now.

The evening air is cold and biting. He actually feels better for it – it clears his head and helps him forget his uneasiness, his odd visions, and his general dissatisfaction.

The walk to the hotel was not that difficult, after all. The old lady was not as hostile as she could have been, her feisty granddaughter held her sharp tongue for once. It turned out to be a normal enough evening.

When he limps back to his house, it is completely dark. He is very tired yet, coming to the front door, he feels a sudden impulse to check on the garden – to see how the small white rose is doing. It is there, on the shadowy bush – small and luminous in the dark, like a little star.

He comes closer, to smell and to touch it. It is so fragile. So delicate. It will be dead in the morning – he can feel the frost setting in. This little flower will not survive the night.

He reaches for the flower, and picks it up – pricking his finger on tiny thorns, but somehow not caring about it now. The rose was going to die anyway, but now it will not die alone and in the dark. He will keep it company.

Holding his small trophy in his fingers, he walks to the back door and enters the house by the kitchen. Switching the light on, his finds a small vase: it stands on the shelf on the cupboard, alongside the chipped cup, and he lets his eyes linger on it momentarily, wondering yet again about the brief and painful vision that cup provoked in him this morning. He puts the flower into the vase, and carries it up to his bedroom and places on the table by the bed. It gives him strange satisfaction to see it there, along with his book and his reading glasses.

The process of undressing is not nearly as complicated as dressing up – he doesn't have to think and choose. The suit and the shirt and the tie go into the wardrobe, socks and underwear into the laundry basket in the bathroom. Going there, he took his pajama with him, and he puts it on now. He is in no mood for another shower, and he will brush his teeth later. First there is another small ritual to observe.

He goes back to the bedroom, puts his robe on, and walks towards a cabinet – it stands to the right from the window. He opens it with a small key he keeps in the robe's pocket. Inside, there is a decanter of cognac and a crystal tumbler. He fills the tumbler, carefully measuring the amber-colored liquid.

With his little drink, he walks back to the armchair by the bed. He wonders briefly if he should pick up a book, but no – he is in no mood for reading, not really. He just needs to sit here for a short while, and to calm down after a tiring and disturbing day.

He is an old man; it is not easy for him to fall asleep. And he feels so stupid when he lies in bed, not sleeping – stupid and uncomfortable, for it is then that the unwelcome thoughts come. Thoughts of loneliness. Of incredible strangeness of his life. Of how meaningless this life is. There is no purpose in it. No real feelings. No connections. His life is empty, and his heart is empty, and it would have been all right if he were a truly selfish person, completely wrapped in himself and not needing anyone. But then, he wouldn't have such thoughts. He would be happy – alone and aloof. But he is not happy. He feels like a little bit of him is missing. Like a little bit of porcelain from that chipped cup downstairs.

With a sigh, he sips his drink. The purpose of it is just that – to keep those nasty thoughts at bay. It doesn't help much, though, but at least it makes him fall asleep faster.

Today, having a small white rose for company, he feels slightly better. Glancing at the flower from time to time, he doesn't think of loneliness. He thinks of spring. It will come eventually, will it not? It must. Even if now it seems that autumn is here forever.

His drink finished, he goes to the bathroom, rinses the tumbler, locks it in the cabinet with the decanter, and goes to bed, placing his cane so that he can reach it easily.

He switches off the lamp on the side table, and the room is filled with grey nocturnal dusk. But there is one bright spot in it – his luminous white rose.

Strangely comforted, he closes his eyes, and drifts to a dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

2

He wakes up in the morning and feels trapped, enveloped in grey mistiness of a sunless, lightless day. There are days when the sky is virtually the same color all the time, the same dull grey in the morning, afternoon and twilight – and pitch-dark at night. The clouds are thick and low, they seem to have a weight – they seem to physically press on one. Yet it never rains, and there is no proper wind – just occasional bursts of it; the air shifts erratically, whirling discarded papers on street corners, capturing dry fallen leaves and making them slide across the pavement with a weird tingling sound. The rain or the proper wind, if they would come, might bring with them some sense of release – some change, at least. But they never come, and the day remains still, unmoving, depressing.

It is such a day today. He knows it even before he opens his eyes – he just feels it in the air. He doesn't want to open his eyes, actually – there is not that much to see around to make it worth the effort. So he stays in bed for a while, awake but with his eyes closed, listening to the small sounds of the world around him; the ticking of an old clock standing in the corner of the bedroom, the cricking of some floorboards, which is always present in old houses, the buzzing of a late autumn fly in the next room; his own breathing. He lies very still, trying to keep the warmth; it is cold in the room, for yesterday, before going to bed, he left the window ajar: he hates the way air gets stiff in a closed room. Yet as the weather outside is cold and humid, the room is chilled now, and his bed feels ice-cold apart from the places where he warmed it – if he moves an arm or a leg, the sheets are cold as the inside of a grave.

Still not opening his eyes, he smiles a little twisted smile at the absurdity of his thought. How does he know what the inside of a grave feels like? It's not as if he ever been in one.

Well, if he is smiling and is ready to appreciate irony, then he might as well open his eyes. He does that, and the world is just as he expected it to be – grey. The ceiling of his room is grey, the fluffy bit of cobweb in the corner over the wardrobe is grey. The rectangle of the window – the piece of sky that shows in the upper frame that is visible from his bed, the one that he can see without making an effort of turning his head – is grey.

That bit of fluff in the corner – it is strange. He could have sworn he removed it yesterday. There can _be_ no cobwebs in his house – he would never tolerate it, he is very tidy, even obsessively so. Yet there it is, in the corner, visible and very present. Perhaps he missed it, after all. Perhaps it was dark and he just missed it. That happens – even he can miss a bit of fluff in the dark corner.

Nevertheless, the irritation at this bit of cobweb makes him purse his lips. He is absurdly angry with himself for having missed it, and his body is filled with restlessness. He cannot lie in bed doing nothing with this bit of fluff sticking out as a sour thumb. He has to get up.

He lifts the blanket (linen, of course, no other kind is fit for a gentleman) and the duvet, which is dull purple, very muted and pleasing for the eye. The chilled air makes him shiver momentarily, but he ignores it: better that then the suffocating stiffness of the night air in an over-warm room, air filled with the smell of dust and his own sleeping body. He sits on the edge of the bed and glances at the window. Yes, the day is just as he expected it to be – grey and still, the clouds practically touching the glass, the withered leaves on top of the nearby trees just visible, looking as a blurred yellow smudge on an old watercolor. His eyes leave the window, and he looks at his legs, clad in silk pajama trousers, navy blue with thin white stripes, cut slightly longer then traditional pajama trousers, for he firmly believes that, just as proper suit trousers, pajama trousers should _not_ show the ankle. Not that anyone would ever have a chance to see his pajama trousers or his ankles, but the point itself is important. His pajamas are exactly the right length to satisfy him, and to hide his misshapen right calf and ankle. He does not like the look of his leg. Whoever was fixing him after the accident did it badly. Strangely, he doesn't remember the accident, which left him a cripple – was it some road accident or a fall, grave enough to give him a memory loss? Did it happen when he was a child? He doesn't remember. Doesn't remember falling, or feeling the pain. Doesn't remember being in a hospital, recovering.

Come to that, he doesn't remember being a child.

Whatever – the sight of his injured leg makes him uneasy, dissatisfied – as if it was somehow his fault. It is absurd – no one can be blamed for being injured – but the feeling is there every time he looks at the scars and the slightly twisted bone, which never healed properly and always aches in bad weather, such as today.

He sighs; well, one has to live through a day no matter what the weather is like. The soles of his bare feet touch the carpet – he likes the feeling, so he pauses a moment before finding his brown leather slippers – they are cold on the inside, chilled out as everything else in the room. Then he reaches for the cane, which stood all night by the side table. He has to lean on it quite heavily to stand up.

He limps towards the wardrobe, over which the offending fluff is hiding, and reaches to remove it with the end of the cane. This will not do – he has to wrap something around the cane – a cloth. To get the cloth, he will have to go out to the kitchen downstairs. Oh, this is so frustrating. He looks around irritably, searching for something – there is nothing in the room that can help him. With an angry sigh he takes a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket; this will have to do, he'll wash it later, or throw it away.

Now, there it is: the fluff is removed. He puts the crumpled handkerchief on the table, and walks towards the window. He opens it wider, ignoring the sudden gust of wind, and throws the fluff out. Much better. This is much, much better. Now he can start the day properly.

Yet he pauses at the window for several long moments, looking out into the garden. It is not a proper garden – he is not a man to potter with plants or flowers. But there is a spot of grass, and several apple trees, and a cherry, which never brings any fruit, and a rosebush. A look at it makes him smile; the stubborn plant sports a lonely flower – a tiny white rose, almost a bud. The last flower of the year. The little fighter, destined to die out in the cold.

Looking at the flower, he gets the strangest feeling. He is certain – much more certain than he was about the cobweb, which he might have missed, after all – that he saw it already. That he stood by his window already, looking at the flower, musing on its fragility. Not only that – he went into the garden later, and picked it, and placed it on the table in a small vase. Didn't he?

He turns around and looks at the side table. It is empty apart from the lamp, his book and his reading glasses. There is no vase with a small white rose.

But it was there! He remembers – he clearly remembers picking it up, and pricking his finger on the thorn. He lifts his hand to get a closer look – no, there is no sign of a prick. But it did happen. If he closes his eyes, it will all come back to him – the biting frost in the night air, the gentle fragrance of the rose, and the pain in his finger. It is all so real.

He opens his eyes. The rose is on the bush. His finger is unharmed. The table is empty.

 _This_ is real.

He is imagining things.

He must be going mad. They say it happens sooner or later if you live alone.

His heart is beating very fast, and he can see that his hand is shaking. It is panic – the onset of panic. But it is irrational. This fear is irrational – there is no reason for that. Perhaps he did see the flower yesterday, and thought of picking it up, but didn't, yet the idea lingered, and in his mind he was convinced that the whole thing actually happened? Yes, this is a reasonable, sound explanation. Much more convincing than the thought that he is going mad. Why would he go mad? He is a completely normal, rational person, with a very ordered, very structured life. A life that he should commence living now, by the way. He has to take a shower, to dress, to prepare for the day – it is an important day today, the day when he collects the rent from the people to whom he leases various properties, and he has many house calls to make. He likes to visit his debtors himself, not make them come to the shop. He doesn't like it when a lot of people come to his shop – they intrude on his privacy. It is not a very commercial attitude, he knows, but then it is obvious that he doesn't keep the shop so that it would bring in money. His wealth comes from other sources; the shop is something that gives him pleasure. Collecting debts also gives him pleasure, but of a slightly different nature – he likes the sense of power that owning people installs in him.

Well, if you can't be loved, it is better to be feared. At least there is some emotion it that. When people fear you and hate you at least you can be sure that they are aware of your existence.

Registering this thought, he smiles to himself; living alone might or might not drive you mad, but it definitely makes you repeat the same thought over and over again. He is certain that he has been thinking along these lines recently – a month ago, most probably; it was the last time when he was due to collect the rent.

Anyway, it is pointless to dwell on human nature when there are so many things to do. He closes the window, casting one last glance at the white rose and making a mental note to come and have a look at it in the evening, and limps to the bathroom. The time that he spent in idle thoughts by the window means that he will have to take a shower now – no time for a bath. He takes off his pajama, leaving it on the chair, and carefully negotiates his way into the bath, cursing his bad leg; he seems strangely aware of it today, his own limp irritates him, as if he is not completely used to it. That is odd – he has been lame as long as he can remember himself, and yet it still gives him some awkward feeling.

He takes his shower very hot – the sting of the hot water helps to ease the tension in his back, brought on by constant limping. Stepping under the water, he sighs, and then leans against the tiled wall. It is early morning yet, why does he feel so tired already? It must be the weather – it is so still and weird, it seems to promise all sorts of things, but those promises come to nothing.

Shower taken, he carefully steps out of the bath, dries himself and walks towards the sink to shave and brush his teeth. Towel-drying his hair, he glances at himself in the mirror and wonders if he needs a haircut – the grey on his temples is too noticeable, and the locks on the back are overlong. The style is getting too fancy for his age and respectable trade. But then, who cares about his looks? People don't come to him for the pleasure of his company. Need brings them to him. And in times of need, people don't notice the face of the person who helps them. They hardly notice the person at all – they only care for themselves and their immediate concerns. He is just a tool, a means to an end.

So, he decides against a haircut. No one will care, anyway.

When he is shaved, his teeth are brushed and his over-long dump hair is combed he walks back to the room. The task at hand is important – he has to dress for the day, and the way he would do it is all-important. He has a sort of belief – a superstition, if you want to put it like that, – that the way we dress affects the whole sequence of the day's events. The clothes he puts on are a message to the world – the armor against it – the image he wants to project.

Well, what shall it be today – what is he going to say to the world with the way he is dressed? He opens the old wardrobe (three doors, built of dark wood and decorated with some bizarre carvings, with a full-length mirror on the central panel) and has a careful look at his shirts. His mood is a bit odd, uncertain – he is inclined to choose a shirt of some complicated color. This very dark, almost dirty plum-colored one will do. Now, for the tie – he has a large number of them but only three that will go nicely with the shirt he has chosen. He muses over a huge tie rack, which occupies the whole space on the back of the central wardrobe door. Instinctively his hand reaches for the dark metallic grey tie with golden spots on it – an obvious choice, and a very good one. But it is also a safe choice, and somehow his early morning incident with 'remembered' flower in a vase makes him unwilling to do what is expected of him – even if it is something that he expects of himself. No, he will go for something a bit less obvious – slightly daring even. He picks a red tie – not a very bright red, this color should be called a 'muted scarlet', perhaps. It is much brighter then the color of the shirt, and it will light up the whole color scheme, make it brighter and bolder.

It is such a dull grey day, after all – he needs to do something to light it up, at least for himself. Let this tie be his little private joke. The socks he chooses to go along with the tie and a shirt are grey, but have tiny plum stripes on them – that extends the joke further, but makes it even more private; there is no way anyone will ever see these socks and note their striking color.

Sufficiently cheered by his choice of garments, he dresses up quickly, putting on a dark grey suit and black shoes, picks up his cane and walks downstairs to the kitchen. He has no appetite, and anyway he has lost too much time musing over ties and human oddities, his own included; so he decides to skip breakfast today – even brewing tea seems like an unnecessary waste of time. He walks through the hallway, puts on his black coat, and goes out.

What a bleak day – colorless, chilly, unpleasant. Still, one has to live it through – things have to be done.

He walks up the Main street, mentally mapping his way around town – he does have a lot of calls to make and, with his leg, he has to do it efficiently, so as not to walk more than he has to. The people on the Main Street get visited first, naturally. The grocer's (here he collects the rent and buys a couple of apples – he is particular about apples and likes to have one sometimes), the drugstore, with its' ever-sniffing dwarf of an owner, the flower shop with the hateful red-faced oaf that runs it, the garage, the bar. The local carpenter gets spared for the time being, though he sees him: the old man is busy, he is mending some broken sign and commenting about it 'falling again' in heavily accented English – Marco is Italian. He methodically visits all the places on his way, giving the owners their share of his politely cold smile, and collects the money. The flower-fellow couldn't pay – apparently the flower trade is not very active this time of year, and the only way he can work around the existing debt is to get into a bigger one: he pawns his van. The deal is straight – if he doesn't pay double next month, he will lose the vehicle. It is a pleasure to see his stupid face go even redder than it usually is at the very thought of this.

Oh well, he _will_ lose that van. The man is incredibly stupid and can't see a step ahead.

Immediately by the flower-shop something unusual attracts his attention. There is a shop – a small shop selling gentlemen's clothing; rather nice, with an elegant narrow window displaying some shirts and ties. The place is dark and dusty and looks as it has always been here.

Yet he doesn't remember ever seeing it before.

That is distinctly odd.

The shop is in the Main Street, that means that he owns the land on which the building stands, the building itself – everything. So he must have visited it regularly to collect the rent. Yet everything about the little shop is unfamiliar, as if he's never been here before.

He feels very uncomfortable – disturbed, even. What sort of a day is he having – remembering the flower, which he didn't pick up, and forgetting a piece of his own property?

To check himself up, he walks to the shop. It is open – the sign on the glass door says 'Push', so he pushes and comes in. The place looks empty and dark, until a small fellow – the owner, apparently, emerges from the back room and greets him cheerfully: 'Mr. Gold, I have been expecting you! I have the rent ready, but there is also some good news – your order has arrived'.

He is completely baffled. 'My order?'

The man nods enthusiastically. 'Yes! Those ties that you wanted delivered from London – here they are. Straight from Savile Row, just as you like them'.

Proudly, he puts a dark leather case on the counter and opens it. It is full of ties – many, many colorful silken rolls of ties, exceptionally good ones, indeed. Well they would be exceptionally good, if _he_ ordered them.

It's just so very odd that he doesn't recall the fact at all.

Oh well, if the ties are here, and are his, he might as well collect them. Absentmindedly he picks the case, only half-listening to the owners banter about his 'extraordinary taste'. He nods, takes the rent (there is no question of paying for the ties – perhaps he did pay in advance, or may be the owner is just so afraid of him that he dares not mention the money?), and leaves.

He will have to stop by his own shop now – he cannot go around town with a case full of ties; that would seem strange. That means he will have to make a detour, but it doesn't matter. If his planned money-collecting walk is broken, anyway, he might just have a spot of early lunch – he did miss breakfast, after all.

When he enters Granny's Diner, a silence falls around him – brief, but noticeable. No wonder, the place is full of people whom he visited already, or is going to visit later, and most likely they are not looking forward to his visit. People are strange; they always expect to get something for nothing, and when things don't work out to their liking, they blame the man who helped them – for a price, of course. They _do_ rent from him his houses – they owe him a chance to own a business, to earn a living. Why do they resent the fact that they have to pay him? Isn't it a natural order of things – a straightforward deal? And his _are_ simple deals, mind it – no catch in them; with Mr. Gold, you get exactly what you paid for.

He shrugs his shoulders, and orders a burger. Granny gives him a sour look and charges extra for something or other that goes with the dish. He does wonder why the old lady is so resentful, always – he doesn't recall offending her in any way. Well, may be she is just upset about her granddaughter – the girl seems to be a handful, practically running wild and hardly ever spending a night at home.

Regina Mills comes in, and joins him at his table – not that he invited her or even indicated any joy at seeing her, but she never pays heed to such minor details.

She gives him a smile – flashy, yet a bit uncertain, it seems. 'Well, Mr. Gold, how are you today?'

'Very well, thank you, Madam Mayor'. Shall he put her off? He doesn't want to talk to her, not really. But then, it is probably better to learn what she wants.

'Great day, isn't it?' Her eyes are shining – there is definitely something on her mind, but there is no way of telling what it is yet.

He shrugs his shoulders. 'I don't see anything particularly great about it. Seems like a perfectly ordinary day to me – in fact, it seems very much like yesterday'.

What prompts him to say that? Today is _not_ like yesterday – today is a specific, distinctive day, the day when he collects the rent. Yesterday was different.

Wasn't it?

What was yesterday like?

He doesn't remember. He is shocked; he realizes that yesterday has left no memory in his mind – nothing but a recollection of picking up a small white rose from the bush in his garden.

The only thing he remembers about yesterday is something that never happened.

How odd.

Meanwhile, his innocent words make Regina grow pale, though very slightly. 'Does it?' Her voice is uncertain – she seems to be questioning him, somehow.

'Indeed it does'. It seems important to him to keep up the pretense of being unshakably sure of himself. She mustn't notice his disorientation.

'Well, if you say so'. Her brow creases. Looking at him attentively, she says suddenly: 'Nice tie. Very smart'.

He inclines his head a little, slightly embarrassed by this rather personal remark – and also shaken by the recollection of the strange episode with the clothes shop. 'Thank you. I must confess that it is a little difficult to procure proper ties in this part of the world. The State of Maine is not particularly famous for the fashion sense of its inhabitants. But I manage'.

'Yes', she attempts to smile again. 'Yes, I am sure you do. Well, it was nice seeing you'.

She stands up and walks out.

Disturbed and mystified, he finishes his meal and leaves, too.

Halfway to his shop he remembers that he didn't collect the rent from Granny. Well, he will have to come to her hotel later this evening, than. That is rather unfortunate – another unnecessary detour, just what his leg doesn't need. But if he made a mistake, he has to bear the consequences.

Yet, despite his discomfort and irritation with himself and with the world in general, being in his shop makes him feel better. It is such a cozy and pleasant place; to an outsider it might look dark and gloomy, perhaps – it is filled with such a strange assortment of objects. But to him, it is a haven – a shelter from anything and everything unpleasant. The things he collected here mean something to him – they are his friends, fateful as no human being can ever be. Sometimes he feels that they can talk to him – whisper little things, sending him messages, telling their stories.

Walking around the shop, touching this and that, gradually calming down he suddenly stops, staring at the wall, not really seeing it. A thought just came to him – not for the very first time today, but much clearer and therefore more frightening.

He is seeing things that never happened. He doesn't remember things he should remember. He believes that antique junk talks to him.

May be he _is_ going mad? Really, truly mad?

He stands motionless for a while, trying to process this thought. They say that if a person is aware that something odd is happening to him, then he is not too far-gone – the truly mad people always deny their illness. Well, he is definitely aware of his problems, so there must be hope for him. Still – something has to be done about it, has it not? A man cannot just go mad, fully aware of his condition and just calmly observing himself going beyond the edge?

But then – what can be done about it? All right, he might go to doctor Hopper – his office is quite close – and present him with a problem. But the doctor is such a meek, ineffectual man. He will not be able to do anything. He'll just be scared out of his wits.

That's what happens to you if you are really, truly lonely. You are in trouble, and you have no one to help you. You don't even have anyone to talk to. You only have yourself, and if you are losing yourself, then there is no hope for you.

He looks around him – rather wildly. The familiar surroundings don't comfort him right now. He feels so very uncertain – of himself and everything around him.

And then he sees himself – catches a glimpse of himself in an old, polished copper mirror that hangs on the opposite wall. In its' uneven yellowish surface his face gets distorted – he looks wild and weird, his skin an odd green color, his hair ruffled, a manic grin on his lips.

He looks frightening. And at the same time oddly familiar.

 _And he hears a voice – a child's voice, uncertain and scared. 'Papa', it says, 'what is the matter? What happened to you? What are you doing?'_

' _I am protecting you. Do you feel safe?' That is his voice. He is answering this child – this little scared boy._

And then the pain comes – the physical pain representing some unremembered loss, which left a void in his soul, a hollow space impossible to heal or to fill in.

Oh God. What on earth is happening to him?

This has to stop. He has to get a grip of himself – has to collect himself somehow.

He shuts his eyes tightly, his hands clenched into fists. He tries to breathe normally – tries to calm down. When he opens his eyes again, the vision of the oddly familiar monster in the mirror is gone. He is looking at his normal self.

He looks a bit shaken, but that is only to be expected.

Resolutely ignoring his fears and his confusion, he walks to the back of the shop, into his working room. He should perform some simple manual task that shall calm him down. It always does.

There is a book on his working desk – a book of fairy tales that he has been repairing… yesterday.

Oh yes. It did happen yesterday. He remembers it very clearly now. He took this book from a shelf, examined it, he started working on it… And then he had a vision – just like today.

There was a yesterday.

Only it was exactly like today.

He woke up in the morning, and he noticed a rose on the bush. He dressed – he put on a different tie! – he went to town, collecting the rent. He dined at Granny's and talked to Regina about ties. He came to work here. He walked back to his house and he _did_ pick up the rose, and placed it on the table by his bed. And it was somehow gone this morning, back on the bush, and today he lived through a day which was as like the day before as it was possible.

But how can it _be_ possible? It isn't. So, he is back to where he started – admitting to himself that he is losing his mind. Either that, or it is some magical trick. But there is no magic in the world, so the madness option is much more feasible.

Yet apparently there is nothing to be done about it. That is, he can't ask anyone to help him – he simply doesn't have anyone to share the problem with. He will have to fight it alone.

He believes in human mind. He believes in his own mind. The mind is very powerful, and it can be controlled and disciplined. Emotions could be reined in – restrained. A structure can and must be installed. And it will be. They say that he is the most powerful man in town – he controls everyone. Surely he can control himself?

Taking a deep breath, he walks towards the desk and sets to work on his book. He planned to repair it, and so he will.

He works on the book for several hours without any odd happenings and, when he is very tired and much calmed down, he leaves the rest of the work for later – for tomorrow. He picks the case with his new ties, locks the shop, and walks to Granny's hotel to collect her rent.

Coming home, he deliberately walks around the house, comes into the garden and picks the white rose – he is careful not to prick his finger this time around. Right, there is no 'this time around', it is an illusion of his demented brain, but he can't fight all illusions at once – for now he will have to accept some of them and discard them one by one later.

The rose is exquisite – delicate and lovely and sweet. He puts it into a small vase, which he takes from the cupboard, and places it at a kitchen table; later on he will carry it upstairs to his room. Now he wants to make some tea – it was a difficult day, he needs to unwind a little bit.

He puts a kettle on fire, opens the cupboard again, and picks a cup.

' _Oh, I am sorry – it's chipped. You can hardly see it!..' 'Oh, it's just a cup, dearie…'_

 _He hears the voices this time – one of them is his voice. And he sees the face – her face._

The pain is so sharp that he sways, and drops his cane, and has to grip the side of the kitchen table to support himself.

Quickly he puts the cup back on the shelf.

No tea tonight.

He turns off the gas, and walks up to his room. He feels shaken and drained.

Slowly, as in a haze, he takes off his clothes – every movement is painful. He puts on his pajamas and his robe, and he sits in a chair with his night cup of good cognac.

What a strange day it was. What a strange, strange day.

He finishes his drink, and drags himself to the bathroom to rinse the glass and to brush his teeth. He gets into bed, completely exhausted. He switches off the light, and looks at the luminous white flower on his side-table – bright in the dark, like a little star.

He drifts into sleep, but it is not dreamless this time. In his dream, he sees a girl – he cannot see her face, just a yellow dress and auburn hair, for she has turned her back to him. She is walking away from him, slowly, but surely, and he cannot catch up with her, for he is crippled – he cannot hurry up, because he has misplaced his cane. He wants to call out for her, to ask her to slow down and wait for him. But he cannot – he doesn't remember her name.

When he wakes up, his face is stained with tears.

It is still dark outside – it is still night-time.

The rose is still standing on the table by his bed.

He is sure he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep now. But somehow he does, and this time his sleep is dreamless.


	3. Chapter 3

3

He wakes up in the morning and feels trapped, enveloped in grey mistiness of a sunless, lightless day. He doesn't want to open his eyes, actually – there is not that much to see around to make it worth the effort. But something nags on his mind, making it impossible to stay in bed – it is awfully cold anyway, because, before going to sleep, he has left the window slightly ajar, so that the air in the bedroom wouldn't get stale as it always does during the night. He hates this staleness, filled with the smell of dust and his own sleeping body.

He opens his eyes, and sees that the world is just as he expected it to be – grey. The ceiling of his room is grey, the sky in the window is grey, and the fluffy bit of cobweb in the corner over the wardrobe is grey.

Now, that cobweb. It shouldn't be there. He removed it – yesterday. Today is not yesterday. There should be no cobweb. He couldn't have missed it – not again.

And there is something else that _should_ be in the room.

He turns his head, and looks at the side-table, and the vase with the white rose is gone.

He gets out of bed so quickly that he forgets about his cane, loses balance and nearly falls. Cursing aloud, he limps to the window, opens it, ignoring the sudden gust of the cold wind, and looks out into the garden. Sure, there it is, the little white rose – there on its' bush, as if he didn't pick it up yesterday. As if yesterday didn't happen.

Well, may be it did not? The cobweb is in place. The rose is in place. And he knows – he is sure, for some reason – that today is the day when he collects the rent from his leaseholders. Which he did yesterday, if he is to trust himself. But he cannot trust himself; he cannot trust his own feelings or judgments. There is a problem with his feelings and his judgment, and this problem is simple and clear, as it was yesterday: he has to admit it – he is delusional.

Damn. He feels so angry – with himself, with the world, with whatever it is that makes him imagine things. He is furious, and his fury needs to be let out, somehow – so he slams the window shut, with such force that the glass breaks, falling on the carpeted floor in thousands sharp glittering fragments. The sudden violence of this action surprises him – it is so unlike him.

Oh well, now he has to clean the shards scattered around his naked feet – in his hurry to get to the window he didn't stop to put on his slippers. He has to walk out of this mess barefoot. This is just perfect!

Silently castigating himself for impulsiveness, – who was it that said that every crime carries the punishment along with it? – he limps between the bits of glass, then moves downstairs to the kitchen to get the broom and the sweeping pan. Carrying these items along with the cane is no small feat. Then up again, to clean the debris, carefully inspecting every inch of the carpet around the window to make sure no bit of glass hid anywhere. Then down again, to throw it all away. Tiresome and longish process, but it probably serves him right – that would teach him not to give in to sudden and unexpected bursts of temper.

Now, he needs to put in a new glass. But that will take too much time, and he already feels as if his day is completely disrupted – he has lost a lot of time cleaning the mess he so foolishly created. He will attend to the glass in the evening. He has to return to his normal routine – taking a shower, shaving, and dressing up for the day. He has to do everything with maddening slowness and very methodically – he is a cripple, he cannot rush things up, he has to step very carefully. Especially if he might still have some shards of broken glass on his carpet…

This inner joke, even if it is not a very funny one, still makes him smile a little, giving a brighter note to the morning's mood. Now that is more like it – he feels slightly more himself.

Shivering in the chilled air, he puts on his robe and goes to the bathroom. Obviously there is no time for a bath now – he'll make do with a shower. His bad leg is aching more the usually – that must be the weather. Well, bad luck that he will not be able to relax it in a hot bath. Perhaps in the evening – if he is done with his business fast enough.

Very carefully he gets into the bath, closes the narrow door of the shower compartment (his bath is an old-fashioned Victorian model, cast iron), fixes taps to get the perfect mixture of hot and cold water. He always takes his shower very hot, it is the only way to ease the tension in his back – it is aching constantly because of the limp. Healthy people don't realize that injuries are never limited to the limb they affect – the effect spreads to the whole body, which has to compensate for the weak part. And it also affects the mind, making a person careful and overcautious, planning everything in advance, thinking and over-thinking every step and every action. Every miscalculation might turn into a drawback, slowing one down or disrupting one's progress altogether. There is no place for impromptu decisions, for impulsiveness and rush moves. He knows that – he always lives like that; his injury controls his life. That is why his sudden drastic action with the broken window took him by such surprise – alarmed him even. This is not like him. He really is not a violent person.

Done with the shower, he reaches for the towel and dries himself – everything but the feet, he dries them sitting down on a chair. Some people might think that having a chair in a bathroom is a decorative folly, but for him it is a necessity; he has to do a lot of things sitting down – like stripping from his trousers or putting on his underwear, for example. It is maddening, really, this impossibility to put on trousers while standing – he can stand on one leg, but not on the other, so he dresses in two stages: eases his feet into trousers sitting down, then pulls them up standing up. And this is just one small detail, just one of a thousand actions he has to perform during the day – and perform them differently than the healthy people.

And yet people say that he has a bad temper and is unfriendly. Well, perhaps he is not the most tolerant of people – he doesn't suffer fools gladly, though he has a sense of humor and they do amuse him, to some extent. But if they don't amuse him, he lets them know it – what's wrong with that? Anyway, why don't they try to live just one day of their life the way he does? Perhaps then they will understand something about him and his temper.

He has to shave now, and he does it with extreme caution – he is aware that his mood is somehow off today, and as a result of this inner turmoil his hands are not quite steady, and he'd hate to cut himself. Shaving cuts always look so ridiculous – they are to be avoided at any price. When shaving is completed (without any unpleasant accidents), he combs his damp hair. It has grown overlong, he obviously needs a haircut; he could have done it, he always cuts his hair himself – he doesn't trust the local barber, and feels very reluctant to leave himself in his power. The fact it, he doesn't like to be touched by other people and avoids that whenever possible – that is the main reason why he cuts his hair himself. Yet there is no time for that today, so his overgrown hair and grey temples will have to do.

He brushes his teeth with mint-favored toothpaste – he likes the fresh, clean smell. He likes everything about his person to be clean and crisp and neat, pitch-perfect, so to speak. His is such an unfortunate appearance that he has to attend to himself with extreme care, for, with his mousy hair and crooked teeth and bony frame, he is just one step away from looking like a destitute homeless person. The line is too fine: just imagine him dressed in rags, unshaven and dirty, and he would look fit for a prison cell, not the elegant surroundings he enjoys.

 _Suddenly the mirror with his reflection in it disappears, and he has a vision of himself behind bars; or rather, he feels as if he is looking through the bars at the long, dimly lit corridor. There are torches on the walls. There is silence around, apart from the soft whining laughter – is that him? Does he laugh like that? Also, there is the sound of dripping water. The prison is underground, very damp and gloomy._

 _This sound of dripping water is like a Chinese torture – it can drive one mad._

Now, what was that – just now? What sort of new delusion did his mind presented him with? The prison cell? The manic laughter? The feeling that he _is_ indeed mad?

Ah, this is impossible. He has to get a grip of himself, if he is going to get anything done today – and he has a lot, really a lot to do. And he hasn't even dressed yet!

With a frustrated sigh he walks to the bedroom – it is bitterly cold in there with the window broken – and opens the wardrobe. He needs to choose a shirt and a tie to go with it – these are the basics of the day's outfit, all-important ones; everything else, from underwear to socks, will have to match. He wonders sometimes why he bothers to match the underwear with the tie – no one, in any sort of circumstance, will have a chance to see his underwear. Well, may be if he drops dead on the Main Street, someone in the morgue will see it. But then he himself will obviously be in no position to worry about it. He does the matching to please himself – he has to be sure that everything about him is exactly as he wants it to be: controlled, coordinated, perfect.

That must be a sign of some psychological disorder, this need to construct himself and his image down to the most minor details. It is not that he wants to impress anybody – well, he does, as in 'project to the world a certain image of himself'. But he doesn't want to be _liked_ by anybody; he is sane enough to realize that clothes wouldn't make people like him. Perhaps the opposite is true – it may well be that his obsessively neat image irritates people further: they know they are in his power, he owns them, owns their homes and their businesses and their lives, and they resent that. They see him as an all-controlling figure already, they call him 'the man who owns the town', and his regular suits, tightly buttoned shirts and perfectly fixed ties emphasize the power aspect in him. His suits are a bit like police uniform – a symbol of his power, and nobody likes to be reminded that a person has power over them. No, he dresses entirely to please himself – to feel _right_ in his own skin. To give himself some additional reassurance, a sense of security. If his clothes are anything short of immaculate, he might as well be naked.

It is deeply disturbing to realize that one is so insecure. And why is that – why does he need all these… psychological crutches to help him walk through life, just as he needs his cane to physically walk? What is wrong with him? Is there a legacy of some childhood trauma, perhaps? He is an orphan, he was brought up by a charity organization run by spinsterish old ladies – may be this need to be in complete control of himself is his reaction to being abandoned by his parents. At any rate, the clothes question is just one additional sign that something is not right in his life. And he gets that feeling all the time, despite all his power, despite all the comfort and stability of his established routine. He feels that something in him is missing. And for the life of him he cannot say what it is, exactly.

The shirt he picks today is a very dark plum-colored one. It is a nasty, unpleasant color – irritating and moody, and it suits his state of mind perfectly. It is also very challenging in the way of finding a matching tie for it – there are only three ties in his extensive collection that will go with this shirt. There is a grey one with tiny golden spots – too playful, it will not do today. There is a dull red one – this one is too bold and bright, and boldness and brightness are not the statements he wants to make today. Well, that leaves only one tie, and he resolutely takes it from the rack. It is made of black silk, covered with mauve pattern: black on black, the dull parts contrasting with shiny ones, like on the panther's hide.

Some would say that black is a safe choice. But it is not. It is a statement: a clear message that he is in a bad mood.

Let them know it. Let them know what to expect from him today. He will not just come to collect their debts – he would come looking like an undertaker, ready to prepare the funeral of their dreams and hopes. That will serve them right – if they treat him like a ruthless monster taking the last from them, when he only comes to collect what is his due, let him look the part.

There is one more thing to be said in favor of black ties – they make the rest of the matching that much easier. The underwear he picks is black, naturally, and so are the socks.

He finishes dressing, tying the strings of his black handmade shoes, and turns to look in the mirror.

He looks positively menacing. There is something very… dark about him.

 _The Dark One._

 _The words echo in his mind – dully, as from a very great distance. No picture comes with them – just the words. He feels strangely chilled by them. There is something ruthless in this name – it sounds like a prophecy of doom, of some evil fate. It spells dark foreboding: not only for others – for himself, as well._

He shakes his head, suddenly angry again. Will this madness ever stop?!

Without looking at himself again, he picks up his cane and walks briskly out of the room, down the steps and directly to the hallway. He is late – he has no time for breakfast, not even for a cup of tea. He puts on his black coat, and walks out to face today's bitter, grey weather.

People whom he visits today feel the full weight of his bad mood. He is sneering, snapping, unrelenting; ready to bite someone's head off at the smallest provocation. That pregnant serving maid from the local laundry – the girl for whom he arranged the adoption of her unborn child – she burst in tears at the mere sight of him, and all he did was ask her when her time is actually due. And he felt pleased by her distress; the stupid wench, nobody asked her to get pregnant after the first date. The disgusting flower-shop owner, babbling about the poor state of the trade – he got his share of his anger, too. He did agree to postpone the payment, but only on the condition that the fellow pawns his van. Oh very well, the fool will lose his money and his vehicle this time next month. Granny – she, ever resentful of him, charged him extra for the pickles he asked with his burger. She obviously didn't have to do it – he is a loyal customer, after all these years he surely has a right for a discount on the damned pickles, – she did it just to spite him. Well, he didn't have to raise her rent, not really. But he did it – just to spite her. She had to lower her eyes, and ask him to come and collect the money later in the evening at her hotel. She obviously didn't have enough in the cash-till. He smiled icily and promised to be there. That would mean an unnecessary detour on his way home, but he will be glad to do it – just for the pleasure of upsetting the greedy old girl additionally.

Even the visit to the clothes shop, even the fact that some very good ties that he ordered from London have arrived safely – even that doesn't lighten his mood. The ties are fine, and it is very good to have them. It is just that at the shop he gets this feeling again – his 'mad' feeling. He is suddenly sure that he already went to this shop yesterday, and collected the ties, and brought them home – left the leather case with them on the chest that stands by his bedroom window, on the left side. But this morning the case wasn't there; he even closes his eyes to get a clearer mental picture, and he is sure it wasn't there. So this whole thing makes for another episode of his psychosis – of his recurrent and very convincing illusion about having done something that he actually did not do.

He is also disturbed by the little conversation he had with Regina Mills. She came up to his table at the Diner, though he didn't ask her to join him – far from it, he gave her a warning look, which she ignored; how very like her.

She remarked that it was a great day today.

He shrugged his shoulders and said. 'I don't see anything particularly great about it. Seems like a perfectly ordinary day to me – exactly like yesterday, or the day before'.

His words made Regina grow pale. 'Does it?' Her voice trembled, ever so slightly.

He meant the weather. He was talking only about the weather.

Or was he? Wasn't he subconsciously referring to his delusional belief that same things are happening to him over and over again?

'Indeed it does'. Whatever prompted him to make this bizarre remark about yesterdays, now in seemed important to keep up the pretense of being unshakably sure of himself.

'Well, if you say so'. Her brow creased. Looking at him attentively, she said suddenly: 'Nice tie. Very smart'.

He inclined his head a little, slightly embarrassed by this rather personal remark – and also angered by it. Who did she think she was, talking to him in such condescending manner? 'Thank you. I must confess that it is a little difficult to procure proper ties in this part of the world, but I can't see how that is of any concern to you. Can we abandon this topic of conversation, please?'

'Yes', she attempted to smile again, with very little success. 'Yes, of course. Well, it was nice seeing you'.

With that, she left.

He finished his overpriced meal alone, and went in the direction of his shop, feeling the stares of townsfolk on his back all the way down the Main Street. Their resentment and fear were almost tangible.

 _And he heard the words again – the same as in the morning: The Dark One. Words whispered behind his back, whispered by people scared out of their wits. Words accompanied by stealthy stares of people at once horrified and fascinated._

 _They were staring at_ him _. They were frightened of_ him _._

 _They called_ him _by this odd name._

He was glad to escape into his shop. He doesn't care if the people in town dislike him, but today they seem to actually hate him, and that is a bit too much. He didn't want to feel those looks on him any more.

It is just that it is impossible to escape from himself. And that's what he would need to do, somehow, if his illusions will continue to pester him, and at such alarming rate. This morning he had how many – three, four visions? The process seems to be getting out of hand.

May be he should get some rest. May be he should stay at home for a couple of days.

It is just that he will be so completely alone if he stayed at home. This way, getting out, running into people and talking to them, annoying and teasing them, he gets to see some human faces at least – even if these are angry and unhappy faces. It would be maddening to live through a day without seeing anyone at all.

Well, perhaps he should stay in his shop for a couple of days. His back room, the office, is very cozy – he even has a camp bed there, he can spend a night on it quite comfortably. And nowhere in the world does he feel better and safer than in his shop, among his curious collection of old and unusual objects. He possesses a very odd assortment of things, but they all seem to belong to his life – they are all warm and friendly. They seem to share a past, he and his things.

Oh yes, it would be nice to stay here and never leave. But all his clothes are at home, and it would be quite impossible to go through the week without changing.

Perhaps he should move some of his stuff here, just in case.

Well, there will be time to think about that. There will be time for everything. For now, he has some work to do – he has to finish repairing this book of fairy tales that he started working on… yesterday?

No, it was not yesterday. It was the day _before_ yesterday.

He stops short, looking at the book that lies opened on his working desk. It is exactly where he left it, and it is exactly in the condition he left it. And this condition is much better than it was when he started working on it. Most of the pages that were falling out are fixed, the torn corners mended. He needs to work on the binding now – he remembers thinking of that the night before. These were the words he said to himself yesterday, looking over his handiwork: 'Only the binding left to fix now'.

This is definitely weird.

He does have those strange flashes – those false memories of the things he supposedly did, like cleaning the cobweb in the corner of his bedroom, picking the rose from the bush – or collecting the ties from the shop, for that matter. But every time he checks, there are no traces of those remembered actions. The cobweb is in place every morning, and so is the rose – still blooming on the bush. But with this book it is different. He remembers working on it, and here it is – on the desk, and there is evidence that some work _has_ been done on it.

If he is mad, then his madness is very… selective in its manifestations. Why would his mind delude itself about some things, and be absolutely clear about other things?

He should try and think clearly about it – try not to panic, as he tends to when the realization of these oddities hits him.

He comes closer to the desk, leaning his cane against its side. He touches the book, looking at it closely. There it is, the torn corner that he was mending when he had a vision of a baby boy reaching for him with his small hand. He runs the side of the page with his finger. No vision comes this time, and he doesn't know whenever he is glad of it, or not. These visions are scary. But perhaps he should welcome them? Perhaps they are telling him something that he needs to know – something about that missing part of him that he so desperately tries to place.

They are like dreams, those visions of his. And didn't somebody say that dreams really are memories – memories of our past lives?

Some would say that this idea is the craziest of all that came to him recently. What sort of person would treat his delusions as a guide to discovering himself? A completely demented one. This is how people really lose their minds – they start believing in their illusions. So that, obviously, is not a way to go. Yet it is so, so very tempting.

And isn't it strange, and significant, that he remembers those visions – all of them – even when he is not sure about actual events of previous days?

Well, if he were to believe his dreams, or visions, what would they tell him about himself? They would tell him that he had a child once – a boy, it seems. That he scared people, for some reason. That he spent some time in prison. That at some point of his life he looked like a green monster. And that there was a girl in his life – a girl with brown hair, dressed in a long yellow dress, and this girl chipped one of his teacups, dropping it on the floor. He doesn't remember her face, or her name, but the thought of her fills him with infinite, unbearable sadness – a sense of irrevocable loss.

That sounds like a complicated life. And he has no real, normal memories of any of those things whatsoever.

All that doesn't explain anything – doesn't really help in any way. The odd thing is that he is not scared, right now – not at all. He is strangely comforted. Oh well, obviously embracing your madness is a way to reach some peace of mind. And right now he'd rather be mad than alarmed. He is too old and tired to endure constant panic.

He prefers to be mad rather than worried – that's old age for you.

With a sign, he sets to work on the book. It is pointless to go on thinking right now – he'd be better off if he just occupies his hands, and clears his mind.

He works on the book for several hours, and by the time he finishes for the day, he is much calmed down. He is even a little ashamed of the bad mood that he displayed during the day. He might want to apologize to Granny when he comes for that rent tonight – there was really no need to upset her just because he felt out of sorts. But then, she did offend him in a cheap and petty way. So – no apology.

He is done, for now – his back is aching from bending over the book. His hands are sticky with glue he was using, so he goes to the little sink installed in the corner of the room and washes them, than dries them on the small rag that hangs on the nail nearby. Absentmindedly, he puts the rag in his pocket, closes the shop, and walks home.

Naturally, he stops by Granny's hotel to collect the rent. But he doesn't linger even for a couple of words – he still has a window to repair in his bedroom. Now, that really was a very unfortunate incident. He definitely must control his temper better.

Halfway to the house he remembers that he forgot a case with his new ties in the shop. No matter – he will pick them up tomorrow; he is too tired to come back for them now.

He reaches his house and goes directly to the basement to get his tools and a piece of glass. Here in the basement he also keeps some big antique objects that don't fit into the modestly sized storage of his shop – the most amazing of them is an ancient spinning wheel. It is a fine thing, in excellent condition, and he couldn't resist buying it, though he has no idea to whom he might be able to sell it. It is not that there are a lot of people that know how to spin in Storybrook, and as an interior decoration object a spinning wheel would also count as a definitive oddity. So he keeps it here, in his basement.

He stops by the wheel now, to admire it – it is made of dark wood, finely polished – it must feel very pleasant to the touch. He reaches to spin the wheel, lightly.

 _The sight of his hand on the spokes makes him see a different hand – green-skinned, scaled, leathery, with nails blackened and long like claws. Is that his hand?_

' _Why do you spin so much?..' ' It helps me forget…' ' Forget what?..' ' Oh, I guess it worked.._.'

Oh well – it definitely worked. He doesn't remember a thing – he doesn't have a clue what this is all about. Yet, though the vision – the memory of a girl, the sound of her voice, – still fills him with the sharpest pain, it doesn't scare him. Not any more.

Perhaps in time he will learn to live with this madness.

He is alone, and always will be alone. Who would care whenever he is mad or sane?

He picks his tools, and the piece of glass, and goes upstairs to mend the window.

That done – expertly and neatly, for he is very good with his hands, – he looks around the room. His eye stops at the cobweb in the corner – in all that confusion with the broken glass he forgot to remove it. To do that, he would need to wrap something around the end of his cane. Luckily there is a rag in his pocket – the one he picked in the shop.

He removes the cobweb, and throws it out of the window.

In the dark garden he sees the small white rose on the bush. It will die in the cold night, poor thing. Yet he cannot make himself go out for it now – he is deadly tired. He doesn't even have the energy to carry his tools back to the basement – he cannot face going down and up those stairs once again, his leg hurts like hell.

He leaves the toolbox by the window – he will bring it down in the morning.

He goes to the bathroom, strips, and puts his socks and underwear into the laundry basket. Then he pauses, looking at his shirt. If he is to believe his interesting delusions, then he has been wearing this shirt for three days in the row. So it should go to the laundry basket, too. He smiles to himself; if he is mad, then he will wash a relatively fresh shirt. If he is not, then he will do the right thing – no gentleman would wear a shirt for more than three days. He shrugs his shoulders, and puts the shirt with the rest of his dirty linen. No harm in washing it, even if he is mad.

He really should run himself a bath, that would help his leg a lot, but he is too tired even for that. He just puts on his pajamas and his robe, and comes back into the room, carrying his suit and tie on his left elbow – his right hand is occupied with his cane. He puts them in the closet, and gets himself a glass of cognac. He is so tired that he is sure he will not have any trouble going to sleep tonight, but he still prefers to give himself that little dose of alcohol – there is a chance that it would help to ease the dull pain in his overworked leg.

The bittersweet cognac burns his throat. He realizes suddenly that he had very little to eat today – just that overpriced burger at Granny's. Well, nothing is to be done about it now. He is in no condition to go down and fix himself any sort of snack.

He is so very, very tired.

He leaves his empty glass on the side table – he would rinse it in the morning.

He goes to bed, and switches off the lamp. As darkness fills the room, he gets a feeling that something is missing. Ah, it is the little white spot of that imaginarily picked rose – the one he supposedly put on his table yesterday night.

It is amazing how powerful our illusions can be.

He drifts to sleep, but his sleep tonight is not very restful – his bad leg still bothers him.

It must be the weather. It is very trying.

Perhaps it will change soon.


	4. Chapter 4

4

He wakes up in the morning and feels trapped, enveloped in grey mistiness of a sunless, lightless day. There are such days when you can _feel_ the weather – it seems that the sky itself has a weight and presses you down. The air is cold, but heavy, it is difficult to breathe, as if you can never get a lungful of air – every breath is shallow. It is such a day today – he knows that even before opening his eyes. It is an effort to open them, actually. He doesn't want to wake up, and to get up, and to go on with everyday routine.

He had a bad night – his leg hurts dully even as he remains in bed motionlessly. He had a bad day yesterday – if there was a yesterday, that is. He remembers vaguely that there seemed to be something wrong with that. This is another thing, which kept him restless during the night and resulted in a feeling that he didn't sleep well. He was incredibly tired yesterday, yet he was not able to really relax, for deep in his mind he didn't want to miss the moment when the day changes – when today becomes tomorrow. Or, rather, when today becomes yesterday, and things that you do or did stop being reality and become a memory.

Ah, that's where his problem is. He remembers that now. He has a slight problem with yesterdays – that much is certain. Or is it? That's his problem, isn't it – he has no way of telling whenever he remembers things that actually happened, or just his illusions about them.

If he is to believe himself, than he knows what will happen now, when he opens his eyes. He will see the day that is precisely as he expected it to be – grey and dull. The ceiling of his room will look grey, as will the sky in the window. The cobweb in the corner will be grey – the cobweb that he removed yesterday, or thinks he did; it will be, maddeningly, there in the corner over the wardrobe, – again.

Well, one has to live one's life even if it is an odd one. Even if you doubt your judgment, you still have to live a life. And you don't stop to question yourself 'why'. You don't ask yourself questions you cannot answer.

And there is no better way to start living a life but to open your eyes.

He opens his eyes, and instantly springs upright in bed, not taking his gaze off the corner over the wardrobe.

The cobweb is gone.

But that is impossible. It should be in place. It is always in place, there in the corner. Every morning, despite the fact that he clearly remembers removing it, it is in place.

His eyes dart around the room. Everything there is in perfect order, just as it should be – he is an obsessively neat person, he always tidies everything up before going to bed. He invariably rinses a glass from which he drinks his night-cup of cognac, for example, – no matter how tired he is, he always does that.

Yet – oh, it is all getting back to him in flashes, and very vivid ones, – he _did not_ rinse the glass yesterday. He was so tired that he left it right here, on the side table. But it is not on the table now – it is empty apart from his lamp, his book and his reading glasses.

And why was he so tired? Because, besides other things, he had to replace the glass in the window, which he broke by slamming it shut angrily. He can't remember what made him so angry, but that doesn't really matter now. He remembers that he mended the window, but didn't bring down his toolbox – he was too tired for that, as well. The window is mended, all right, and slightly open, for he hates the stale night air in a closed bedroom, but the toolbox is gone, as if it has never been here. As if the window was never broken.

Ah, but this is too weird even for him. How could he imagine breaking a window and mending it? What is the point of such an illusion? They say that there is a certain method in every madness – so what's his? What bizarre logic could invent such an event?

And why, if everything he 'remembers' is false, is the cobweb gone? How can it be gone if the rest of the setting, which greets him every morning, is exactly as he expected it to be?

He gives a bitter laugh, and runs his fingers trough his hair; it has grown overlong, by the way, he obviously needs a haircut. It seems there is no pleasing him; he is irritated that the cobweb is gone, though he should welcome that, for it proves that at least some of his memories are real. Yet at the same time he is angry that there are no other traces of his yesterday activities, and that serves as further proof that he is mad. What does he want – a stable routine, or a conviction that his memories are real?

Well, he wants things not to contradict each other, that's what he wants! He wants everything to be clear and understandable. He wants to control his life, as he controls the people in town – people who pay him their rent and curse him for being too harsh with them. Ruthless, they call him. What will they think if they knew of his inner turmoil? They might start despising him, and that would never do. They must never, ever see his weakness.

This eagerness to preserve a nasty reputation surprises him. Does he actually _want_ to be resented by everyone? Or is it that he simply knows better than to expect anything else? He knows, deep in his heart, that whatever he does they will always resent him. It is simply in his nature, to be an outcast, an outsider, a man apart. It seems that he was born that way, and lived that way all his life. And that is why he prefers to be the one in control; it is better to rule people than to try pleasing them. Power is achievable. Sympathy is not. He knows that from experience.

Just what sort of experience is he thinking of? There was nothing disturbing or even unpleasant in his life, as far as he can remember it. Yes, he is crippled and unattractive, and yes, he is lonely, but that seems to have been his own choice. He was always too distant and… shy to get close to people. He never let them come close enough to know him. Perhaps he thought that if he did he would get hurt – he never expected to be treated with kindness. But why did he think that? Why was he always so sure that life wouldn't treat him right – which it didn't, subsequently, for when you expect the worst, that is precisely what happens to you? Why is that? Is it just his petty temper? Is he the sort of person who is never happy with what he's got, and always thinks that he deserves better?

Well, it is downright stupid to dwell on that sitting in bed. He is just losing time, and time is of importance today: today is the day when he collects the rent from his leaseholders, and he has a lot of calls to make. He prefers to make those calls in person, not to make people come to his shop. Perhaps it is just another aspect of that power-game he was thinking of earlier. He likes the feeling he gets when he comes to his debtors in person, inevitable and menacing and inescapable, like fate. Come rain, come shine – he always comes to collect what is due to him. That is, if one doesn't concentrate on the fact that it did not rain, and the sun did not shine, for a very long time – the weather seems to be always the same. However hard he tries, he cannot even picture a different weather – a sky of different color than this ghastly grey.

Right, if he wants to do things he's got to start moving. He sits on the edge of the bed, shivering in the chilled air – fresh air is nice, but it has its drawbacks. His bare feet touch the carpet, and he likes the feeling – the carpet is soft, yet not excessively so, so there is a gentle rubbing to the soles of his feet, as if they are massaged. That feels nice, especially if one's leg is aching so much from early morning. He actually probably needs to get his leg massaged properly, but the very idea of asking for medical help, of stripping before strangers, and of letting anyone touch him is abhorrent.

He bends his leg, painfully, to reach his calf and ankle and to rub them gently. Then he moves lower, to his foot, ignoring the searing pain that movement brings with it – he knows that he has to stand it, to get through it, if he wants to walk today. He rubs the instep of his foot, and his toes constrict – he is very tense: it is the result of a restless night. Slowly, gradually the rubbing helps – his toes relax, and it is much easier to move the foot. Now a move up to the ankle, but it is, strangely, less painful and less important than the foot, which bears the main consequence of the limp. As well as his back, which is always twisted, for he has to balance the way he walks. The only remedy for that is an extremely hot shower, and that is exactly what he needs now. Perhaps the shower will clear his head, as well. His head needs a lot of clearing if he is prone to imagine bizarre things like broken windows when none were even slightly damaged, as far as the evidence tells.

He stands up, finally, and moves towards the bathroom, careful not to forget his cane, which stood all night by the side table. He glances towards the window casually – he's got to close it, now, for the air is chilly and it would feel very unpleasant when he gets out of the bathroom after the shower. The sky outside is grey, and it looks like even the air itself is grey. He moves to close the window, and to look outside at his garden – yellowish and bleak like everything else in the world. A bitter smile reaches his lips; it is not much of a garden, of course, just few apple trees and a cherry and a lawn. There is also a rosebush, and on that bush he notices a small white bud. What an obstinate flower, to try and bloom at such weather, at this time of year. Surely it will die in the cold. It is a pity that he didn't notice it earlier, though what could he have done, even if he did? It is too late to cover the bush. The only thing he could have done would be to pick the flower, to ensure that when it died eventually it would not die alone. He would have kept it company, would give it a sort of home, at least for the night.

But the poor thing would have died anyway, wouldn't it? If he picked it, he wouldn't help the rose at all – he would only please himself.

Is that his way to care for things – by destroying them? Does he kill everything he loves?

' _He cast her out…' 'So she needs a home?' 'She threw herself off the tower… She died…'_

 _Two voices, again – no picture, just two voices; his own and another, oddly familiar, though he cannot place it right now. And with the memory of these voices saying those words, an emotion comes – despair, deep and cruel. Utter hopelessness. The feeling that the light is gone from his life… forever._

The pain is deep and sharp, and he welcomes it. His visions – his strange visions, the ones that tell him something about himself: they also tell him that there is some truth in his illusions about his remembered actions. He remembers his visions. And those are different visions, they add to one another – every next one tells him an additional part of the story. He has no idea what the story is, but he is certain that he needs to know it. Perhaps knowing it is the only way to set things right – to master his own mind, which plays such cruel tricks with him.

He closes his eyes, and rubs his face with his hand. It is all very well, these visions and these self-enlightening thoughts, but right now he is losing time. There are things to do.

He starts walking towards the bathroom again when something else catches his eye. There is a small piece of cloth on the carpet. Where did that come from? Oh, right, it is the same cloth with which he removed the cobweb yesterday – the one he brought with him from the shop. He must have dropped it when he was done with the cobweb – he threw the piece of filthy fluff from the window, and he must have dropped the cloth.

He bends down to pick it up – dirty little cloths shouldn't be scattered around his room. And he has to inhale sharply at the sudden prick of pain in his middle finger.

Something sharp caught itself in the fabric, and he cut his finger – there is a drop of blood on the pad.

He hates to cut himself, to break his skin. He is always very careful about himself.

He wants to shake the cloth angrily, wishing to find the offending sharp object. But it must be minuscule, if it was hiding in a piece of fabric, so shaking it is no use – he will just drop and lose the damned thing. So, controlling his anger, he stops himself short, and spreads the cloth on the windowsill to examine it closely. It takes some time and a lot of patience, but then he notices it: a small sparkle, barely visible, but unmistakable.

It is a piece of glass.

He picks it up, gently, with his index finger, and examines it in the grey light of the day.

It is a piece of glass. A piece of glass from the broken window. He spent a long time looking for shards on the carpet, and removed most of them, but this one was too small – it remained in place, and got caught in the piece of cloth, which he brought from the shop. That was yesterday. And there is no way he can deny it now; there was a yesterday, he did break a window, he did clean the debris, and he mended the glass. He cannot explain the fact that his tools are gone, though he didn't bring them down to the basement. Yet there is no way he can convince himself that nothing happened. Even for the sake of maintaining his sanity, he cannot keep telling himself that nothing is happening, that everything is all right. It is not. There are things, real things that are happening to him. He mended the book in the shop, and his work progressed. He did remove the cobweb, and it _is_ gone. He did break the window, and there is a piece of glass to prove it.

And, at the same time, there are other things, no less real to him, contradicting the evidence he has. He is convinced, in his mind that today is the payday. He is certain of that. And he knows, looking at the bit of glass, that yesterday, when he broke the window, was the payday as well. It was the _same day_. He had the same feeling when he woke up. The weather was the same. The white rose was on the bush, as it is today.

Yet it was yesterday.

There are convictions, things of which he is sure because something makes him believe in them. And there is hard – and sharp – evidence that things are not what he believes them to be. His convictions and facts clash with each other.

His head is reeling, and he feels slightly sick.

Either he is completely insane, or something is playing tricks with his mind. Which would amount to the same thing, wouldn't it, though? His mind plays tricks with him, or something else does – either way there is something deeply wrong with him. He cannot imagine what it is, or can be – he is a very rational person, normally, but right now he feels like a hero of a motion picture, a cheap thriller in which a man is trapped in some mystical cursed town, or is caught in a time-loop, or in any other way becomes a victim of some supernatural power. Some… curse.

 _A curse._

 _The word echoes in his head, spoken by hundreds different voices – some triumphant, some scared, some gleeful, some resolved to fate. His own voice speaks it. No, not his own voice – a voice of that green thing he remembers himself being at some point._

He shakes his head. Remembers? He _remembers_ being some green monster? If he 'remembers' that, how can he trust himself when he thinks he 'remembers' events that didn't happen on the previous day? Does he really think that a bit of glass in a piece of cloth constitute a proof of something that contradicts every rational thought? A curse, indeed!

He _is_ insane.

Yet why doesn't this scare him? It did – at least he 'remembers' it did, first time he thought of it. But it doesn't scare him now. Why?

Well, obviously because he is insane, and feels comfortable in his own twisted world. The convoluted logic of a madman soothes and disturbs him alternately, that's how madness works.

Yet how can he be insane if he is telling himself that he is?

He feels like a person divided in two. There is one man, who lives an ordinary, boring and uneventful life, not happy, but content, and he wants to stay content – more than anything else in the world he wants peace and quiet. There is another man, who feels compelled to question this routine existence, who seems to glimpse something beyond it and, even while scared and disturbed, to welcome that glimpse as a breath of fresh air. For why would he insist on the reality of his illusions if he didn't like them, in some way? If he really wanted peace, he would just discard that craziness, forget it, push it out of his mind. Yet he welcomes them, those weird fantasies. He dwells on them and sticks to them.

This is madness – he has a double personality, what can be clearer and more typical?

So, why isn't he scared? The answer about being happy in a madhouse doesn't really work: he is not happy; his two sides are actively fighting each other.

There must be something else.

He glances around him, at his very comfortable, very boring room. A double bed with linen blankets and dull purple coverlet. Why does he have a double bed if he lives alone? Side tables, with a lamp and a book on one of them. A wardrobe made of dark wood and decorated by some intricate carvings. A cabinet on the right side of the window – that's where he keeps his cognac. A chest of drawers on the left; that's where he keeps his underwear and socks. A place for everything and everything in its place, that's what they say about ideal home, right? His home is ideal, yet he is not happy here. His mind is so restless that he feels obliged to imagine some other reality, some other life, less obvious and a little scary and filled with emotions and somehow more… meaningful than the one he really lives.

He brings his hand closer to his face, to look at the drop of blood on his pricked finger. Following an inexplicable impulse, he licks it – it tastes a little salty – and then he smiles. He seems to know the answer.

He is not scared to be mad because it is _interesting_.

There is only one word to describe his 'normal' life, and that word is 'boring'. While he was content and secure, he was bored to the point of dumbness, he realizes that now. Bored out of his mind, if such a pun can be forgiven. Since his delusions began, he feels exited and diverted and… alive? He feels better. Troubled, yes, and confused, but definitely better.

Right now, it seems that even his leg bothers him less than usually.

So what's the harm? Really and truly, what _is_ the harm? As long as he keeps it together, as long as he knows there is a line between reality and his interesting impressions, as long as he is not running along the Main Street with froth at his lips – what is the harm of giving in to his mind, when it wants to play with him?

No one will ever know of it, or care. No one cares for him, anyway. Nobody is interested enough to notice anything odd. Why can't he give in to this madness, just a bit? Oh, he is not going to do anything special or spectacular. He just will not castigate himself when things appear strange to him. He will not bother to convince himself that this and that 'cannot be'. He will withhold judgment. He will just note things, and let his mind wonder about them.

It will be his little private joke. A game he will play with himself. That would add a bit of a silver lining to his otherwise grey existence.

Deep in his mind he knows that he is making a very dangerous move right now. That is how people really go mad – by giving in to their illusions. But somehow he doesn't care. He is having his visions and delusions anyway – he can't help it. He might as well enjoy them.

Immensely cheered, he goes to the bathroom. He spent so much time deliberating about his mental health that there is no time for a bath now, so he will have to take a quick shower. Very hot, as usual – his mind might be calmer, yet his back does ache, he needs to relax. When finished, he moves to shave and to brush his teeth, and at some point makes a face at himself, giving himself a rather weird grin. Well, he is no beauty, and he'd better not pretend there is anything the least attractive about his person. All the more reasons to make the best that he could of himself. And the best way to go about it is to dress properly.

Still grinning, he walks towards his wardrobe and opens it. His hand, moving as if on its own accord, reaches towards a dark plum-colored shirt. But then he stops himself, for he gets a flashed vision of his own hands, mending that window that he is now convinced he did mend; he was dressed in this same shirt 'yesterday', he is sure of it – he remembers the sleeves. It is boring and obvious to put on the same shirt. Anyway, there are only three ties to go with it, and it seems such a pity to limit his choice with just three when he has such an extensive collection of wonderful ties.

He spends a couple of moments looking his tie rack over. Yes, this tie – deep violet one, with diagonal darker stripes, – will do. It is bright and bold, quite fit for a man who has just decided that he is content to be mad. The shirt he picks is violet and striped as well (these stripes are vertical, of course), though the hue is a bit different. A daring combination, rather difficult to pull off, but then – who will care? As with his madness, no one will. No one will even notice.

The underwear he picks is matching in color, as are the socks: they also have black and violet stripes, horizontal this time.

If only his scared debtors knew that he comes to threaten them wearing violet pants and striped socks! That would shake them. Luckily, no one will ever have a chance to find that out.

His favorite dark grey suit and black shoes go very nicely with the shirt and the tie – they are neutral, and just what he needs to balance the eccentric colors.

Admiring his look in the mirror, he suddenly thinks: 'Well, this is me. That is what I am; a bit of craziness balanced out by the pretense of normalcy. Or, to put it the other way round, a respectable façade livened up by a hint of eccentricity'.

And somehow that feels completely _right_.

He smiles at himself. Not a very cheerful smile, admittedly, but content. Isn't it what he wanted all along, contentment? He found it, even if at a price of accepting his apparent madness. But it is only natural, for everything comes with a price.

Still smiling, he picks his cane and walks downstairs. He doesn't feel like breakfast, but he will have a cup of tea.

He puts the kettle on fire, than walks towards the cupboard to get the teapot and the tea box. When they are set on the table by the sink, ready for brewing when the kettle would boil, he turns back to the cupboard, opens the glass doors, and very deliberately takes the chipped cup.

' _All you will have is an empty heart and a chipped cup'._

 _He sees her face now, oh so clearly – the milky skin, the parted lips and the unbelievably blue eyes. There is such regret in them. There is so much sadness in her voice._

The kettle whistles behind his back, but he ignores it. He continues to stare at the cup, discarding the dull heartache, the throbbing in his head, and the almost physical sense of loss this staring brings. The vision faded, he cannot see the girl anymore, or hear her voice. But he knows he will not forget it, this vision. It is part of him, part of himself – very probably it is a part of his _mad_ self, but he has just decided not to fight with it, didn't he? And, sad and disturbing as the vision is, he doesn't want to lose it. He wants to hold on to it. He wants to see the girl again, at least in his mind. Something, weighting like a stone on his heart, tells him with deadly certainty that there is no other way to see her. It is not as if she never existed, being just a figment of his imagination. She did exist. And she is gone.

What happened between them? What did he do to his nameless girl to make her look at him with such reproach and yet with so much… love?

She loved him, this girl who chipped the cup. He saw that in her eyes, even in a brief instant while the vision lasted. He felt the warmth of her emotion – of her devotion. And he knows that he would give anything – anything – to be loved. Oh yes, he, the ruthless one, the master of the town, the sneering and snapping owner of people's lives, the loner, the self-content collector of curious objects and fancy ties, the pitiful creature pretending to be happy on his own, hiding behind his routine, his obsessive tidiness, his rituals and his aloofness. He would never admit it to anyone – he barely admits it to himself. But it is the naked truth. He would give anything for love.

So what happened to the love he apparently had? What happened to this girl?

And why can't he _remember_ her?

He becomes aware of the angrily screaming kettle behind him, and with a sigh turns to take it off the fire and to make himself some tea. Life must go on, regardless of his dreams and visions. He picks another, undamaged cup, but doesn't put the chipped one back into the cupboard. He puts it on the table and looks at it while drinking his tea. Whatever the cup does to him, it doesn't work when he is not touching the thing – he sees nothing, remembers nothing. The cup just stands there, on the dark wood of his dining table, delicate and white and very small. But however hard he looks at it, nothing else comes to his mind. It is just a cup.

' _Oh, it is just a cup'._

Yes, he heard this phrase before – he remembers that. But nothing new comes. Nothing rings a bell.

Something does stir in him, then – something turns in his mind, painfully, but dully. But he cannot grasp it, and it slips away, leaving behind just a slight sense of dissatisfaction.

He drinks up his tea, washes the cup and teapot, and goes out. He has a long and tiring day ahead of him, and he wasted a lot of time this morning, so he's got to move.

Walking the Main Street, looking around him he finds that his newly formed resolution to give in to his madness – namely, to admit to himself every instant when anything seems odd to him, – makes his progress that much more entertaining. Marco the carpenter is fixing some shop sign, which seems to be falling off all the time. Even Marco mutters something about the blasted thing 'not falling off _again_ '. The Mayor and the schoolteacher collide at the corner; can't these two girls see where they are going, it is really brainless to run into each other like that every morning… Now wait a minute, where did that come from? Why did he put it like that – 'run into each other _every morning_ '? Did that happen already – does he 'remember' it? Well, it seems that he does, he just did not register that memory – not properly. He makes a mental note of this new… development, and continues his journey.

His debtors don't provide much entertainment, and the fact that they say things that seem familiar doesn't prove or disprove anything. All people who owe you money and don't want to pay always say the same things. The sense of déjà vu is inevitable if you are collecting debts.

The only jarring moment comes when he approaches the shop where he usually picks his ties. He seems to have a vague feeling of having picked up a new set, well, _yesterday_.

Careful not to let himself miss anything odd, he pauses at the door to consider and to analyze his uneasiness. The owner sees him through the glass – even hurries to open the door to let him in. But he waves the man away. He doesn't have to come in now, if at all. That's his rent he collects, and his ties (if he didn't pick them already). He might as well come for the money and the ties later – tomorrow, perhaps? He smiles at that, and even gives a quiet snort. Will there be a tomorrow, or will he be forever trapped in his fantasies of a repeating day? Well, that remains to be seen.

He walks on, ignoring the tie-shop.

In the middle of the day he goes into Granny's Diner for his lunch. The grumpy old lady does make a nice burger. If only she didn't charge him extra for the pickles – that always upsets him, for he has a feeling that she does that just to him, out of some spite. So, to spite her back, he orders the burger without the damned pickles.

She is extremely surprised and looks at him over her glasses. 'No pickles? Are you sure, Mr. Gold?'

He smiles with malicious contentment. 'Perfectly sure, thank you'.

She shrugs her shoulders and hurries away towards the kitchen. It is ridiculous, really – she would charge him extra for some stupid pickles, when they both know that in the evening he would come for the rent and take all her day's earnings.

It is even more ridiculous to engage in a petty conflict over pickles and extra dime in a lunch bill. What has he come to, if he is entertained by such trifles?

And why does he have this feeling that he used to be something bigger, something _more_ than he is now? He is the most powerful man in the town; he owns it, for Gods' sake. What _more_ could he have been?

His thoughts are interrupted by Regina Mills. She comes into the Diner and heads up to his table immediately. He didn't ask her to join him, but she ignores his warning look; that is very much like her.

She seems disturbed, and even the flashy smile she gives him reveals her eagerness to talk to him. Well, let her talk. No harm in knowing what's on her mind.

'Well, Mr. Gold, how are you today?'

'Very well, thank you, Madam Mayor'.

'Great day, isn't it?' Does he sense a slight hesitation in her question?

He shrugs his shoulders. 'I don't see anything particularly great about it. Seems like a perfectly ordinary day to me. Exactly like yesterday, or the day before'. He pauses. Then, remembering his visions and his decision not to fight them, he says very deliberately: 'In fact, every day seems like the same day to me'.

His words make Regina grow pale. 'Does it?' Her voice trembles.

'Indeed it does'. He smiles, and holds her gaze.

'Well, if you say so'. Her brow creases. She looks shaken – really shaken.

Now, here comes an interesting point. All through this conversation he had a feeling that they had this little chat before. And, true to his decision to respect his madness, he didn't try to chase the feeling away. So, if he is to trust his 'memories', she'll now comment on his tie.

She does look at it, indeed. But she holds her tongue. Instead of complimenting the smartness of the garment, as he knows she wants to, she gives a rueful smile and says simply: 'Well, it was nice seeing you. Good day, Mr. Gold'.

He nods, and she leaves.

He finishes his meal, puzzled. Now what was that? Why didn't the chat go the way he 'remembers' it? What new trick his madness played with him, denying him the very illusion he was expecting?

Concentrating, he tries to piece together the conversation he _thinks_ they had before. And then he remembers. He asked her to drop the topic of ties, which he found embarrassing and too personal.

And she did. He asked her, nicely, he used the magic word 'please', and she obeyed.

What an interesting reality his mind is creating for him! What a glorious world would that be if we only had to say 'please' to get what we wanted. Like a child's world, where everything is possible, and there is always a way to work around difficulties, and you can always stop the game if you don't like the way it is going. You can always undo what you did. You can always come back and replay the moment when you've made a wrong choice.

' _Don't go back on our deal!..'_

 _There is green light, and some swirling, and a face of a boy, screaming desperately for him, and clutching his hand. There are fingers that let go, his fingers; they let the child's hand slip away. And then there is just darkness, and despair, and useless and helpless tears._

The pain is so sudden, strong and piercing that he starts, his hand jerks and he overturns his coffee-cup, spilling the contents all over the table. There is a general mess, and the scantily clad waitress girl, Ruby, comes swiftly to clean the coffee-poodle with some napkins. It's all very unpleasant. He mutters that he is sorry, and he obviously feels worse about the incident than it's worth, but he is still disturbed. He doesn't like to lose his face publicly, it is so humiliating, and the very word 'humiliation' stirs an unpleasant feeling in him – not like his visions, not exiting at all but sickening and very real. The more he thinks of it, the less bearable it becomes.

He knows that spilling his coffee is not a big deal; it is a triviality, really, it happens to everyone. But still he feels deeply embarrassed and hurries away from the Diner as fast as decency and his bad leg would allow him.

The fact that some coffee got on his tie doesn't improve the situation one bit.

Damn it, that means that he will have to stop by his shop now, much sooner then he intended. He was planning to collect some more rent after lunch, but it is unthinkable to go around town with a coffee stain on his tie. No debtor would take him seriously. So he needs to change the tie.

He hurries towards the shop, annoyed and unsettled, and fervently hoping that his memory about collecting a set of new ties and leaving them in the shop will happen to be a real one. He unlocks the front door, which opens with a sweet tingle of a bell. Hearing this familiar sound, he instantly feels calmer. It is amazing how much importance we can attach to things and places. His shop is an extremely important place for him – the only place where he is truly happy. And it is filled with things that are important to him. He is very attached to his collection; to him, every object has an aura and a personality. They are more alive that most of the people he knows. And there is no danger in being attached to them; unlike people, things cannot hurt, humiliate or abandon you.

They can't love you, though. But then he is not sure that people can, either.

The shop is dark – the light coming from the windows is scarce, especially on such a gloomy day. It takes his eyes some time to adjust to the change of conditions. Briskly he walks into the back of the shop, to his office, and glances at the table where he left the book he was repairing these... past few days. This is where he left the case with ties, if his memory is real.

He is in luck today. There it is, standing on the far end of the long working desk – the case he picked from the shop _yesterday_. He has a right to call that past day that, now. The case is here, and it is a much stronger evidence of the reality of his memories than a piece of glass caught in a dirty cloth.

Quickly, he comes up to the case and opens it. Yes, here they are, just as he remembers them – new ties, couple of dozens of them, delicately colored silk rolls. He looks them over carefully, trying to find the one that will match his shirt and the rest of his outfit. He is lucky indeed – there is a tie, just one, that will match the color of the shirt perfectly. The only problem is the pattern. Did he think that combining two kinds of stripes was daring? How about matching a striped shirt with a _paisley_ tie?

Oh what the hell, he doesn't have any choice, does he? He takes off the damaged tie and pauses briefly, considering what to do with it. It is very doubtful that the stain would come off, coffee stains are tricky, and so he most probably should just throw the tie away. But he is reluctant to do so. The stain might wash off, after all. And it is such a nice tie – he'd hate to lose it. So he folds it neatly and puts it into his pocket, picks an outrageous paisley patterned one out of the box and puts it on, then walks into the front of the shop to check the result in one of many mirrors hanging on the walls. Instinctively he avoids the copper one in which he saw himself all green and scary. He did decide to welcome his visions, not to invite them, especially such unpleasant ones. He looks into an ordinary old mirror, and is surprisingly pleased with what he sees. The new tie doesn't look clashing at all – in fact, it looks better than the old one. Well, at least he likes it better. The hint of eccentricity is much less subtle, of course, but the color scheme is ideal, and the combination is unusual and exiting.

The only problem he has now is that he lost so much time with this tie distraction that he will not be able to stay in the shop and do any work on the book. He would have to hurry along if he wants to finish his money-collecting trip around town. And he has to, for what will people think of him if he doesn't come to collect his rent when he threatened he would? They would think he relented – they might think he is getting soft, and that is unacceptable.

With a sigh, he touches the book briefly, giving it a silent promise to return tomorrow, and goes out again to continue with his job. It feels like an odious task today, he is bored and unhappy, and consequently gives his debtors a worse time than usually. His nerves are jarring, and he knows that it is so because he didn't spend enough time in the shop; that usually calms him down even on the most unpleasant days. But today he had to leave too soon, and he feels distinctly out of sorts. His leg gives him trouble, too. That must be because of the weather; it's cold and wet, and the air is heavy. It feels like the rain is coming, but it doesn't.

He hopes it will rain, at last. Of course if the sun came out it would have been better, but only a fool would expect that to happen in the State of Maine at that time of the year. And he is anything but a fool, so he is not waiting for the sun. The rain will do; any change will be better than this stagnation.

The day is drawing to a close. He has done most of his work. Just two places left to visit now – Granny's hotel and a local bar, called 'The Rabbit Hole' in some distorted allusion to 'Alice in Wonderland'. He hates the place, it's vile; filled with smoke and smell of beer and sweat and all the tables are sticky with spilled drinks. He would have closed it, it is detestable. But it brings in extremely good money, as everything dealing with humoring human vices does. And he is not the one to lose a profit because of moral scruples; he would give people what they want, for a price, of course. If they want to ruin themselves, it is not his concern, as long as he reaps the benefits of their self-destruction.

He makes his visit to the bar as brief as possible, though. He comes in briskly, walks straight to the barman, who is acting as manager as well, and, without saying a word, taps the counter. The fellow hears him, despite the shouting of some rock-band from the jukebox. He nods, disappears in the back office for a second, and comes back with a roll of banknotes. He was prepared – he is well aware that Mr. Gold is no fan of his joint and doesn't like to linger.

He pockets the money, and starts to leave; his mood is still dark and unsettled, he doesn't want to stay here a second longer than is strictly necessary. On his way back to the door he glances towards the billiard table. There is a couple playing pool. A woman has long and curly dark hair, she throws it over her shoulder and it cascades down her back. She is hitting a ball, and it seems that her shot is lucky, for she gives out a happy yell and takes a big gulp of beer, then puts the mug on the table with flourish and swings her buttocks teasingly, challenging her partner. He slaps her, playfully, and she screams with laughter.

This scene makes him physically sick. How can a woman behave like that – how can she degrade herself like that? It is disgusting and unnatural.

' _What are you doing here? It is time to go'. 'You run home. That's what you are good at'._

 _The laughter, the teasing, the contempt. The searing humiliation of being insulted by her, publicly, and being unable to do anything, to answer her adequately, or to make her respect and obey him, as a wife should._

The pain is dull now, and mixed with a sick feeling, as if bile is coming up his throat. He needs to leave. He has to think. He must process what he just saw. And he cannot be himself here in the bar, in this stale air.

Moments later he is outside, leaning against the wall, breathing shallowly, trying to get a grip of himself. He is glad that the air is so bitterly cold now; it helps to clear his head, to cleanse his lungs from the stink of the bar, and to settle his mind after the disgusting scene he saw – and the painful vision he experienced.

A wife, really? Did he have a wife? A wife who teased and insulted him in front of the laughing crowd in a bar? Well, he must have had a wife, if he had a son. And it must have been a difficult marriage, if she behaved like that.

What happened to her? Why did she treat him like dirt?

Was she unfaithful to him? Did she leave him?

Who was she, that woman whom he doesn't really remember but who must have been his wife? Was that the girl with the cup? No, of course not – he is sure of that. When he sees the girl, when he even thinks of her, he feels the sadness and the loss, yet he also feels warmth and affection and… love. When he saw that woman, he felt pain and anger and impotence.

He is deeply unsettled. He almost regrets his decision to pay attention to his visions. He did think that they might tell him something important about himself. Now it appears that they just might tell him things he doesn't want to hear.

Slowly, he crosses the square, heading towards Granny's hotel – it is the last place he intended to visit today. Behind the closed doors, he hears shouting – the old lady is fighting with her granddaughter again; they seem to be at it all the time. The girl is a bit wild, and right now the question they are 'discussing' seems to be her wish to go out again. Probably to the bar that he just left. He winces at the memory, and enters the hotel. The old lady stops her shouting short and gives him the money with a sour look. She is probably still upset about him breaking the pickles routine in the afternoon.

He walks home, feeling extremely tired. It seemed like a very long day, and fun things mixed with upsetting ones in a very strange way. Walking into the kitchen, he muses briefly if he should take some tea, but then decides against it; it is too much trouble. Yet he still walks towards the cupboard, opens it and stares at a chipped cup for a moment. What a sweet little thing… Like that rose in the garden – the rose he decided not to pick after all, letting it go, letting it live out its last night in its own natural way. He touches the broken rim with his finger. There is no vision and no pain this time, yet he can swear that he felt something. A touch of warmth, like an answering caress.

He sighs. It is such a trifle, this momentarily touch. But it soothed him, and he really needed that after the incident in the bar.

He goes up to his bedroom, undresses tiredly, putting his things into the wardrobe and into the laundry basket in the bathroom. He doesn't give a thought to any of his actions, he is like an automaton. Shirt and suit go on their respective hangers, tie goes on the rack, socks and underwear go into the basket. The shower is too much trouble, just as is the tea. He will brush his teeth later, after he drunk his little glass of cognac.

He seeps it slowly, sitting in his chair, staring at the wall and reliving the events of the day. On the whole, he is satisfied. He did everything that he planned, business-wise. He did not spend enough time in the shop, which is a pity, but he will make up for it tomorrow. Or, he corrects himself mentally, if not tomorrow then just… another day. And his decision to live with his inexplicable flashes of fancy, not to fight them, did ease his mind a little. He did feel and see some unsettling things, that's true. But at least he didn't quarrel with himself over them.

He has enough people to quarrel with. He can at least be at piece with himself.

He finishes his drink, rinses his glass dutifully and brushes his teeth. It has been a long day. He needs to rest.

He practically crawls into bed, he is so tired. He drifts to sleep almost at once.

 _The woman lies in bed, inert. She is naked, her dark hair is loose, and her locks are spread over her shoulders and partially cover her breasts. Her skin is swarthy, suntanned, as if she is a gipsy or a peasant. Her legs are wide apart. Her eyes are closed. She doesn't want to see him, doesn't want to feel his touch or his intrusion, but she doesn't fight him. He is not worth fighting with – she despises him too much to spend any emotions or energy on him. She just lies still, waiting for him to be done with her, tolerating him – barely. And somehow her contempt makes him even more insistent. He doesn't want to simply enter and possess her. He wants to shake her up, to take her by the shoulders and physically shake her, he wants to scream into her face that he doesn't deserve to be treated like that, that she is lucky to have a living husband, and it is not fair to do this to him. Yet he does nothing of the sort. He crawls up to her, pitifully aroused by the very fact that she doesn't close her legs and actually lets him touch her. He pushes in, trying to shut his ears to her exasperated sigh. He closes his eyes, wishing he could forget who she is and how she feels about him, wishing he could feel just a simple pleasure of touching a woman's body. He has a right to that, hasn't he? He is a man. He has a right to something, doesn't he?_

 _Oh yes, he is a man, and he has a right to something. To anything! He has a right to do anything that he wants to. He has power to do anything that he wants to. He can lick her ears, and run his fingers through her dark hair, and squeeze her breasts, which are full and have dark nipples, squeeze them almost painfully and hear her gasp in excitement. He can run his fingernails down her spine, making her back arch towards him. He can push into her as hard as he wants, and he has a right to hear her moan and to feel the salty taste of her sweat on his lips. He has a right to feel her welcoming his lust. 'Bloodlust' – 'I like the phrase…' He has a right to kiss her mouth as she comes, breathing out his name. He has a right to look her in the face and see in her eyes that she is his – she belongs to him._

 _He opens his eyes and looks into her face._

 _It is not the woman that waited for him to be done and leave her alone. It is a different girl – dark and handsome, and she looks at him with a passionate challenge._

 _And somehow it is much, much worse._

He opens his eyes and stares into the dark ceiling. His breathing is hard and shallow. He is covered in sweat.

He is also extremely, painfully aroused.

Going back to sleep is out of the question. Getting rid of the images that fill his head is impossible. He let his mind roam free today, giving in to the tricks it plays on him, and now he has to pay the price for that indulgence; his body played a trick on him. It is running wild, and nothing can check it. Even shame – he is hot and cold with shame, but it doesn't quench his excitement. Adds to it, actually.

However disgusting the very idea is, the problem has to be dealt with.

He gets out of bed, and limps towards the bathroom. The night glows dully behind the window, the room is dusky and silent. He sees a shadow of his face in the mirror. His face is taut, drawn, his eyes are wild. His pajama top is open. His chest is bony and scrawny.

'Look at yourself', he whispers. 'Look at yourself and think of your desires and rights'.

He remembers the woman, her spread legs, her naked breasts, the thin layer of sweat on her skin, and he hardens even more, and he has to put his hand in his trousers, and to close his eyes. The images flash in his mind. Bodies, opening up and entwining. Tongues, meeting. Lips, brushing the skin. Him, entering her. Her, stiffening, and then relaxing. Thrusting, harder. Breathing, faster. Not thinking. Just feeling. Possessing. Sobbing at the shame and the sadness and the desperate impossibility of all this.

 _Her_ lips never touched him like that. He never felt _her_ hands on his naked skin. _She_ was above all that – she was pure, virginal and sweet, white as her skin, light as her eyes.

And yet he wanted all that – with her. Only with her, for she eclipsed all others.

And yet he never touched her.

He cannot help it. His mind fills with visions. Her eyes, filling with tears at the wonder of his touch. Her lips meeting his. Her auburn hair spreading over his chest. Her breasts, silky and soft, under his fingers. Her legs, opening to let him in. Her breathing, quickening.

Never, never, never. It never happened, and it never will.

He shudders, and sobs, and, as he comes, he hits the mirror with a fist of his free hand. There is a crush of toiletries falling down into the sink. There is broken glass, and he cut his hand on his own razor, which opened as it fell. He doesn't pay heed. He looks at himself in the mirror, his hands stained, one with blood and the other with semen, and cries silently.

Then he opens the cold-water tap, and cleans himself, and splashes water on his heated face. He leaves the mess of broken things in the sink. He will deal with it tomorrow.

He adjusts his garments, and walks, slowly and painfully, back to the bed.

He lies on his side, staring into the dark window.

He wishes he were dead. There is too much pain. If not dead, then he wishes he could forget all that. Wake up in the morning as if nothing happened.

He doesn't want any more memories, real or imaginary.

He wants oblivion.


	5. Chapter 5

5

He wakes up in the morning and feels trapped, enveloped in grey mistiness of a sunless, lightless day. The air is heavy, even though the window in the bedroom is opened – he always leaves it ajar before going to bed, for he hates the way air grows stale in a closed room during the night. The room is cold, but there is no feeling of freshness. He is oppressed, as if the weather is weighting on him. It feels as if he did not rest at all, though he is sure he slept, heavily and dreamlessly, as if stunned. If fact, it is still an effort to open his eyes, and his whole body is numb. This prostration is difficult to fight – he simply doesn't want to wake up, as if he is unwilling to face another day.

Unwilling, or afraid. He doesn't want to open his eyes not just because he doesn't want to see the grey world around him, but also because he doesn't want to see his face in the mirror. Though why should he feel that way, he has no idea. He doesn't remember doing anything wrong yesterday.

It requires sufficient mental effort to stop himself from brooding. He has no time for that; he has a difficult day ahead of him. Today is the payday, the date when he collects the rent from his leaseholders, and he has a lot of house calls to make. And, with his lame leg, it is not a small task, so he has to make as early a start as possible.

He opens his eyes, and the world around him is precisely the way he expected it to be – grey and unwelcoming. The light in the room is grey, the pale shadows in the corners are grey, and the sky outside is grey. He sits on the edge of the bed, shivering from the cold. There are certain disadvantages to his love of fresh air. He puts his feet on the carpet – the soft touch is pleasant, so he doesn't put on his slippers and limps barefooted to the window to close it. Stopping there, he casts a casual glance into his garden. It is not much of a garden, for he is not much of a gardener: just a few fruit trees and a rosebush. There is a bud of a white rose on it; a stubborn flower that decided to bloom despite the winter cold. It will die, surely. Well, there is nothing to be done about that – it is a pity he did not cover the bush when the weather was warmer.

Picking his robe from the chair next to the bed, he walks to the bathroom; he needs to shower, for he feels somehow unclean, as if he sweated profusely during the night. That is weird, he rarely sweats at all, but the feeling is there and it is very unpleasant. He likes to keep himself neat and impeccable, in the way he dresses, cares for himself or carries himself – with his unfortunate appearance it is the least he can do. So, a shower is prescribed. It will also help to ease the tension in his back – it is always aching because of his limp.

He wonders briefly if he should run himself a bath, but then decides against it. It will take too much time, and he is impatient to leave and start with his day's work. Very carefully he climbs into the bath; a difficult task for a lame man, but over the years he has grown so accustomed to it he barely notices his movements. He adjusts the shower taps so that the water is extremely hot – he likes it that way.

For a while, he is standing under the running water, blissfully unthinking, with his eyes closed, his hair (which has grown overlong and needs a haircut, but there will be no time for that today, obviously) plastered to his scalp, his tense muscles gradually relaxing. He could stay that way forever, but he has things to do. With a sigh, he turns off the water and reaches for the towel – it always hangs conveniently close. He dries himself carefully, everything but the feet – he dries them sitting on a chair; not many people appreciate how difficult it is to dry one's feet standing up if one's right leg is incapable of supporting one's weight. A cripple's life is a complicated one, but he has nobody to blame for that. Just rotten luck, that's all. That can happen to anyone.

He puts on his robe, appreciating the nice feel of the silk lining against his naked skin. The shower was a good idea – he feels so much better now.

He turns towards the sink, to shave and to brush his teeth, and freezes, seeing his face in the mirror. He gets a flashed vision of himself, reflected in a cracked glass, crying, extremely upset by something. There was also broken glass in the sink, and blood on his fingers – he seemed to cut his hand.

He is confused. Obviously none of that happened; the mirror is undamaged, there is no debris in the sink, and his hand, which he brings up to his eyes to examine, is not cut. He must have imagined this scene, or perhaps it did happen some very long time ago.

Shrugging his shoulders, he continues with his morning rituals. Once done, he limps out of the bathroom, picking his discarded pajamas from the chair. He folds it neatly and puts in under his pillow, then makes up the bed. Everything must be done properly. Tidiness and order are the keys to a happy life – well, to a contended existence, at least.

When the bed is made and a dull red coverlet is smoothed over the white linen, it is time to dress. He always starts dressing with choosing the shirt and the tie; that is one of his little manias, to match all his clothing around the tie.

He opens the door of a huge ornate wardrobe standing in the corner of his room, and surveys his shirts. Two attract his attention: one dark plum-colored one, and another – violet, with very thin darker stripes. All his instincts are leaning towards the plum-colored one, yet he decides against it: the day is so dark, if he will put on this shirt, the mood would become completely oppressive and all the soothing effects of the morning shower would get wasted. So he picks a violet one and turns towards the tie-rack. There is one tie that matches the shirt, but the pattern on it is completely awful – how did a paisley tie get on his rack, anyway? He lifts a wondering eyebrow, than directs his attention to other ties – he has a very extensive collection of them. Yes, this – dark violet with small black dots – will go with the shirt perfectly.

The suit to wear with this shirt and this tie is a dark charcoal grey.

Placing selected garments on the bed, he walks towards the chest where he keeps his underwear and socks. Nothing fancy today, he decides – black will do. A bit banal, perhaps, but he doesn't want to be too extravagant, even though no one will ever conceivably know the color of his underwear. He knows, and that's enough; that knowledge is what pleases him, whenever he chooses extravagance or respectability. He likes to possess secret knowledge about people, to learn of their weaknesses and peculiarities, and he likes to have little secrets himself. He likes power in all its' forms. He likes his position as the master of the town. And naturally he wants to be his own master. Possessing small secrets nobody will ever discover is one of the power games he plays, even with himself.

Sitting on the bed, he starts pulling on his underwear – another thing he can't perform standing up, as is putting on both his socks and his trousers. These things done, he puts on his shirt, buttons it up and puts on the tie.

He is satisfied with his look in the mirror. Businesslike, yet not boring – exactly as he is. He firmly believes that the way one dresses has to reflect one's personality.

He picks up his cane and goes downstairs. He really should get some breakfast, but every option, from toast to boiled eggs, puts him off. He will just get himself some tea.

While the kettle boils, he walks to the door leading to the garden and glimpses the white rose on the bush once more. Brave little thing. He wonders if it will survive the night.

The kettle whistles, and he turns to the cupboard to pick a pot and a cup. There is a chipped cup on the shelf, and he makes a mental note to get rid of it; what is the point of keeping a chipped cup that can crack any moment? That can be dealt with later, though. He picks a normal cup, makes the tea, and drinks it slowly, sitting in a room dimly lit by the gray daylight. Again, as in the shower, his mind is blissfully blank. He simply enjoys a quiet moment.

Rinsing the cup and the pot, he dries his hands on the kitchen towel. He is ready to go.

He puts on his coat, picks the cane and leaves, carefully locking the door behind him.

His money-collecting walk around the town is meticulously planned so as to give maximum comfort to his bad leg. Of course, he could have made people come to him with their money. But, apart from the fun he gets out of unpleasantly surprising them with his visits, he simply likes the exercise. It is nice to walk around town like that, breathing in the fresh salty air of the seaside, watching people, noticing their vices and troubles and oddities. Marco the carpenter, fixing some shop-sign and muttering to himself in a way lonely people often do; one wonders if the old guy is getting a bit crazy, always complaining that he never had a son. The Mayor, bumping into the schoolteacher on the corner and looking at her with a hostility unnecessary over such a trifle; one wonders why Miss Mills feels it is worth her time to harass the poor teacher. Doctor Hopper, walking that ridiculous spotted dog of his – a dog named after a cartoon character, for God's sake. One wonders if the doctor is queer, he is such a meek man. Granny and that wild girl of hers, Ruby, fighting over something, like they always do; one wonders if perhaps the problem is that the old girl used to be exactly like her granddaughter once and just recognizes herself in the young slut. The sheriff, mooning the Mayor furtively as she walks the street; one wonders if these two realize the whole town _knows_ they are having an affair? The detestable flower-seller, always moaning over his bad sales and trying to pawn more and more things so as not to pay his rent; one wonders if, given a chance, he would pawn his own flesh and blood.

Knowledge, the secret knowledge of peoples' hearts – it is much more important then owning the very land on which the town stands. Knowledge is power, and it is almost magical, the way it helps to control people.

The day goes smoothly, he is making good progress; he even had time to collect a new set of ties from the shop – he ordered them delivered from London, and now at last they have arrived. By afternoon he did most of the rent-collecting, and that means that he can have a quiet lunch at Granny's Diner and then go to his shop to work. Even the fact that Granny charges him extra for the pickles he takes with his burger doesn't upset him much. The old girl is in a bad mood because of her quarrel with Ruby; let her have that extra dime. He certainly can afford it, and he will get it back anyway this very night when he will come to collect the rent from her.

While he is eating, Regina Mills enters the Diner and makes a beeline towards him. He has no particular wish to talk to her, and gives her a cold look, but she ignores that.

'Well, Mr. Gold, how are you today?' She smiles, a bit uncertainly.

'Very well, thank you, Madam Mayor'.

'Great day, isn't it?' She is really _asking_ him that. She seems to be extremely keen to know his opinion over this trivial matter.

He shrugs his shoulders. 'I don't see anything particularly great about it. Seems like a perfectly ordinary day to me'.

'Does it?' Regina looks at him doubtfully, as if she expected some other answer.

'Indeed it does'. He smiles, politely. What else can he say? It is such a meaningless conversation.

'Well, if you say so'. Her brow creases. She looks puzzled.

He is waiting for her to go on, but she is silent. He shifts in his chair and glances at his food; he can't go on eating while she is sitting staring at him, and it will grow cold soon.

Regina notices his brief glance, blushes, as she always does when she feels uncomfortable, and clears her throat: 'Well, it was nice seeing you. Good day, Mr. Gold'.

He nods, and she leaves. Why on earth did she come up to speak to him, anyway?

He finishes his meal and walks out of the Diner. On the street, he pauses, surveying the town. His little world. His property. Everything here is exactly to his liking – apart from the weather, perhaps. The sun or the rain – any change from that still and… pregnant condition, which forever promises something, yet never delivers, would be welcome. But there is no way to influence that – the weather will change one day, eventually, when nature allows that.

No one can control nature, and everything that can be controlled, he controls.

He gives a satisfied sigh, and walks slowly to the shop. His step is as light as it can possibly be; he was looking forward to this visit all day. If he loves anything in this world, it is his shop. Such a warm, cozy, sheltering place, filled with lovely unusual and rare things, and arranged precisely to his liking. When he is in the shop, nothing can touch him – he doesn't even mind the hostility that townsfolk feel towards him. He can't blame them, anyway. He owns them, what would they love him for?

Some people cannot be loved, only feared, that's the way of things. He can live with that.

He enters the shop; the bell rings sweetly when he opens the door. He likes even this sound. He is not expecting any visitors, so he walks directly to the back room, to his office – he has some work to do there. He likes to perform some delicate manual tasks, like repairing or cleaning his antiques, to calm his nerves after a tiring day.

He enters the room, glances at his working desk, and freezes.

There is a book on the working desk – the book he was mending… for a while. There is a case of new ties, exactly like the one he is carrying. It is open, though, and one tie is missing. The paisley-patterned one, the one at which he wondered this morning at home.

He had to put it on in the middle of the day yesterday, because his old tie had a coffee-stain on it. The stain he made in the Diner when he spilled his coffee. That happened because he had a vision, a horrible vision of a young boy falling into a whirlwind of green light, desperately clutching his hand.

Not just a boy. His son. His lost son.

Oh God.

He slumps on the chair, putting his elbows on the desk, running his hands trough his hair, trying to stifle his sobs. His whole world collapses around him, all his self-satisfaction and contentment gone, because he remembers.

He remembers yesterday, and the days before that. He remembers his visions, his illusions, his convictions, and his madness. He remembers his dreams, and why and how he broke the mirror in the bathroom. He remembers the shame and the tears. He remembers the dark-haired woman. He remembers the girl with a chipped cup.

How could he forget? How could he look at the cup this morning and think of getting rid of it? How could he walk around town in such a self-contented manner all day, enjoying the power, complimenting himself on the way he controls everything and everyone around him? Oh what a fool, what a pitiful, delusional creature he is! He, controls the town?! He cannot even control his own mind. He, the master of the world?! He cannot master his own memories. He, musing on the power of knowledge? What knowledge does he have if he doesn't know himself? Who said that, 'all our knowledge is ourselves to know'? That was Pope, Alexander Pope, the poet. Why does he know _that_ if he doesn't even know his own name? And he doesn't. He knows what's written on the shop sign – 'Mr. Gold'. That's what everyone calls him. But is that his name? What is his first name? How can a person not know his own bloody _name_?!

He knows it is important – it is all-important – to remember his name. And he cannot. And it is driving him crazy. He is losing it, completely. Sobbing, he jumps from the chair, forgetting his limp, looking wildly around him, sweeping his tools from the desk, clutching at things that make him remember, yet don't tell him enough, throwing them around, scattering the ties over the floor, tearing the pages from the book, kneeling to pick them up, running his hand over his tear-stained face, clutching the side of the desk to steady himself, collapsing on the floor among the chaos he created.

Slowly, very slowly he calms down, and stays on the floor breathing heavily, like a child that cried himself to stupor. Slowly, very slowly he comes to his senses, starts registering his surroundings. He gets up to his knees, and is able to look around and see what he's done.

Oh no, no, no. No.

The floor around him is littered with scraps of paper from the book that he so painstakingly mended. The silk ties are twisted among them like colorful snakes. The chair is overturned; glue is spilled on the table and on the floor. His working tools are all over the place. Some brushes are broken; the magnifying lens is broken, too. The quiet, comfortable haven of his workspace is disrupted – nearly destroyed. And he did it himself. He always destroys everything that is dear to him. He cannot control himself. Something dark – grief, or anger, or frustration, or self-pity, – takes over him, and makes him kill the things he loves. Like that rose, which he killed over and over, picking it up just to relieve his loneliness. Like that book, mending which gave him pleasure and peace.

Like the girl whose love he lost. Like his son, whom he abandoned, letting go of his hand over that pit of green light.

Oh, but he will make things right again. He will undo what he did. He will clean the mess – something tells him that, unlike the broken glass at his house, the mess in the shop would not simply disappear in the morning. He knows it sounds crazy, he knows it even as he says the words to himself, but he cannot help it – that is how he sees things, how he feels them. He _knows_ , in the depths of his madness, that things in his house mend themselves, so that he can wake up and see everything exactly the same every morning, following that inexplicable time-loop. And he knows, in those same depths, that things in the shop change; the book changed, while he repaired it. The ties he forgot here, stayed here. Somehow things that are happening in the shop are not affected by the cursed illusion that he experiences. So, he will have to clean the mess, and that would serve him right – it would teach him to control himself in the future.

And he knows that if he repairs the book again, it will mend. There is some consolation in that.

But there are some things that cannot be undone.

He lost the girl. And he lost his son. And, even though he has no evidence that they ever existed anywhere but in his demented imagination, their loss feels just as real. It hurts just as much. For what is reality, if you come to think of it? It is a conviction in our mind. Everything that happens to us happens, matters, and gets real for us only if our brain registers it. Reality is just a matter of perception.

If something is real enough to hurt, it _is_ real.

He learned yesterday that to give in to his madness completely, to start enjoying it is dangerous – his mind gets unstable. He learned today that denying his illusions, blocking his mind to them is equally dangerous – they come back with vengeance.

So he will have to balance. He will have to learn to live in two worlds: the real one, and the one existing in his mind. He will not try to decide which is which. After all, in one world he wakes up in the same day everyday, and in the other touching a cup makes him see things – sounds like both realities are pretty distorted. Yet he simply cannot choose between them. He has to accept both. And he has to master and control both, if he wants to survive.

The best way to start making good of this excellent plan is to start undoing the damage he did to the place he loves most. So he starts picking the thorn bits of paper from the floor, putting them together like pieces of a puzzle. He must salvage all the pages from the book. And he will. Then, tomorrow – for there will be a tomorrow of sorts, here in the shop – he will start repairing the book again.

Several hours later, the mess is cleaned. The ties are back in the case (for curiosity's sake he opened the new case while he was collecting the contents of the old one: the ties were not the same. Curious. Does that mean that if he will collect a new set of ties 'every day', and leave them in a shop, he will have an unlimited source of them? He would have to check that). He collected all the thorn pieces from the book, and spread them on the table in comparative order to be glued back 'tomorrow'.

His back is aching and his knees are screaming from all the efforts. But he welcomes the pain; he deserves it.

He must leave for the day now. He still has two debtors to visit.

He comes to 'The Rabbit Hole' first, and leaves as soon as he possibly can. While in the bar, he doesn't lift his eyes. He doesn't want to risk seeing the woman playing pool again.

Yet he seems to hear her laughter, and he winces, and hurries out into the night air.

The visit to Granny is equally brief; he just takes the money and leaves, letting her continue quarreling with her girl.

He comes home, and goes up without even glancing at the kitchen. He definitely doesn't want any tea tonight, and he is not prepared for any vision the chipped cup might bring to him. He is barely alive as it is. He cannot endure any more. Not today.

In his bedroom, he undresses tiredly. The temptation to leave things scattered on the floor, even if just to check whenever they will be magically gone in the morning, is great. Yet he resists it. He wanted to discipline himself, didn't he? Then he must live his life as orderly as he could. He puts his tie, shirt and suit in the wardrobe. He puts his socks and underwear into the laundry basket. He takes a look at it, while doing so, and notes that it is empty, though he doesn't recall doing any washing. How come he didn't notice that before?

He puts on his pajamas and his robe, and pours himself a glass of cognac. He definitely needs that; he cannot imagine going to sleep peacefully, or at all, if he doesn't calm down his nerves. Pausing with the decanter over the glass, he considers the events of the day, grins and pours himself a double measure. What the hell. The convenient side of his time-loop delusion is the fact that there is no chance of a hangover.

There is another thought, as well. May be, if he will drink more than usually, he wouldn't dream, like he did yesterday.

He sips his drink, closing his eyes, trying to clear his mind, wishing he were a smoker.

He rinses his glass when he is done, and brushes his teeth. However disturbed he is, it is unthinkable to go to bed without brushing his teeth.

He gets to bed and closes his eyes, thankfully, wondering what the morning would bring.


	6. Chapter 6

6

He wakes up in the morning and feels trapped, enveloped in grey mistiness of a sunless, lightless day. He knows what the weather is like, even before he opens his eyes and glances at the window. He knows not just because he feels the weather, due to the heavy humidity and coldness of the fresh air that got into his room through the window-frame he left ajar before he went to bed. He knows what the weather is like because he knows – he is convinced – that it is the same weather as yesterday. That today is the same day as yesterday.

This is something new. Every morning for the past week he woke up with a relatively fresh and clear mind, things were normal to him till something brought on the wave of memories or visions, and made him 'remember' the oddities of his existence. Every day the discovery of the similarities in the day, the feeling of the time-loop, came as a surprise, disturbing and shocking. Today, there is no surprise and no shock and no doubts, no need to check them and make sure one is feeling… what one is feeling. Today he just _knows_. He wakes up fully aware that he is going to live through the same day as yesterday, or the day before. He cannot explain it. He just knows, and he isn't surprised and disturbed – not really. That probably means that he has finally descended into madness and accepted the imagined situation that his sick mind created as the actual reality. Well, be it as it may, he cannot change that. Where would he go for help, whom can he ask for advice? The whole town fears him or hates him, sometimes both. He has no friends, no family, and no connections with anyone in the world. As he has told himself before, if he really went mad no one would care or even notice.

Ah, that is also something new: today, he remembers what he thought and did 'before'. Thoughts, feelings and ideas don't come afresh. He knows he was thinking this or that already. This is nice; this is not bad at all. That way, at least he wouldn't look foolish in his own eyes, repeating his own actions, arriving at the same reactions over and over again.

He wonders why his madness has decided to manifest itself so fully today. Perhaps it is because he gave the two sides of his nature, the fantastic one and the real, free reign, and suffered the consequences, and they brought on some sort of catharsis, after which his mind found a way to relax in its' warped 'normalcy'. The fact that he feels so calm and content about his relapse into madness doesn't bother him – it is only natural; he stopped fighting with himself, he surrendered, naturally he is feeling better now. Anyway, now he must make the best out of his situation. He must try and enjoy the day he has to live trough, as much as he can.

He sits on the edge of the bed, shivering in the chilly air yet at the same time admiring the fresh smell of sea that fills the room. The soles of his feet touch the soft surface of the Turkish carpet, and he likes the feeling so much he actually wiggles his toes. Then he puts on his slippers and gets up, leaning on his cane and registering what a fine cane it is – heavy and solid, made out of black polished wood, with gilded top that fits the hand so perfectly. His hair gets into his eyes; he brushes it away and wonders if he should actually cut it, as he obviously has to, for it is overlong. Yet then he thinks: if tomorrow will be the same day as today or yesterday, what is the point of cutting the hair? He will wake up unchanged again, and will have to repeat the process, and that is boring and tiresome.

He decides to leave his hair alone, and limps to the window to shut it. The bleak garden outside strikes him with melancholy beauty; the yellowish tones of the grass and of the withered trees go nicely with the grayness of the clouded sky. And the white rose, of course, is there on its place – a single glitter of light in the grim landscape. Whatever else his madness means and whatever it will bring him, there is one good thing about it. If he is living the same day, if this day repeats and starts over every morning that means the rose will always stay on the bush. It will never fully bloom, yet it will never truly die. It is trapped in time – yet it is preserved in it, as well, and every morning its' clear brightness will greet him and give him solace. That stubborn little fighter, never having a chance to win, yet never giving up, forever fixed, as human hope. They say human hope dies every night and rises from the dead every morning. It is not so. Hope never dies. It is always there, carrying on madly and persistently, resisting all reasoning and fighting every objection.

He shakes his head, dismally. What a sentimental old fool he is, musing about roses and hopes… He has things to do. He has a day to live through. And it is an important one, even if a bit repetitive.

He goes to the bathroom to take a shower and to shave. His actions are mechanical, accustomed, his mind is relatively blank. He adjusts the temperature of the water so it is hot enough to relax the tension of his ever-tired back, he balances his steps carefully, mindful of his bad leg, he peers at himself closely in the mirror, careful not to cut himself while shaving. He grins at himself when he is done, surveying his shockingly bad teeth. His must have been a difficult life when he was a young man – otherwise, with his close attention to his own person, he would never let his teeth go into such condition. He wonders idly what singularly unlovely appearance nature has given him. Everything about him is undistinguished – he is short, he is scrawny, his leg is lame, his face is wrinkled, his nose is long, his teeth are crooked, his hair is mousy and lank and graying. There was a crooked man, he lived in a crooked house... He might have been majestically ugly – even that would have been better, it seems. Yet he is not. He is just unattractive and… unlovable.

Well, one has to compensate for that somehow. The only way he knows is to dress properly. There is no better way to send the world a message about what you truly are then a well-chosen tie.

' _You cannot tell what's in a person's heart until you truly know them…'_

 _Her face – her lovely, animated face, eyes shining with conviction of the truth of her words, brows creased in distress at his unwillingness to listen. It is not that he is unwilling, though. He is just scared. Scared that if she saw what's in his heart she'd be disappointed – there is not much to know there and nothing to love. And he is scared that if she knew him she would undo him. He would never hold, never be able to fight them, those eyes of hers._

The vision is so strong and real this time that he can almost feel the girl, the warmth of her closeness, and the smell of her hair. It seems if he reached forward, he'd be able to touch her. Yet it is not possible, and _that_ fills his body with pain. It is not just a pain of remembering, as he felt it so often during his visions. It is the pain of loss.

He closes his eyes, and opens them again, concentrating on his own reflection in the mirror, making himself come back to reality.

Nothing will bring her back. He will have to live with that, God knows how.

He limps to his ornate wardrobe and opens the central door to have a look at his shirts and ties. Today's choice is a dark grey shirt and a dully-red tie, with small black dots on it. The underwear will have to be grey, the socks brown – he has a pair that matches the tie perfectly.

Putting all that on, as well as the dark grey suit, he picks his cane and comes down. He probably should get some breakfast, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to make himself tea, too. He knows what will happen – he will pick up a chipped cup and the pain will crush him again. He doesn't need that. He doesn't need another reminder of his loss, of the emptiness of his existence. Not yet. Not so soon.

He doesn't want to go out, either. He knows he must, it is a payday, he has to make his rounds in town, calling on people and reminding them that they are in his power. He admitted to himself before that power brings him pleasure; he likes to torment and humiliate his victims, punishing them for… what? For never having loved him? Yet what did he ever do to earn their love? Yet, on the other hand, why does he have to earn anybody's love when everyone else just gets loved for no particular reason?

Anyway, today he doesn't look forward to his money-collecting duty. Power gives him no trill, he doesn't want to see those sour faces and to hear lame explanations, he doesn't want to limp along streets, doesn't want to go to the Diner for lunch and to biker with Granny over the pickles, doesn't want to talk to Regina about just how fine the day is today. Today, when he is convinced that every event of the day is predictable, he doesn't want to follow the prescribed path.

And suddenly the thought hits him. He doesn't have to. Right, perhaps the day _is_ the same and will come again tomorrow. Yet it doesn't mean that he has to do precisely the same things that he did before. He can change events, even if just during the day. For instance, he can make himself a sandwich and take it with him, and have lunch in his shop. Yes, he would really love to do that – it will be so much better then facing all these people in the Diner again. And he doesn't have to walk around town painfully. He can take a car – he has a car, a very impressive black Cadillac, so why doesn't he drive around in it? That will save him a lot of time and effort. That will give him plenty of time to spend in the shop. As for exercise – he can always go for a walk in the evening, just for the pleasure of smelling the sea.

The thought cheers him immensely – he feels clever and cunning and gleeful, having discovered a way to trick his mind, or his madness, or his weird reality, a way to make this day livable. He opens the fridge, surveying its contents. There is some salad, and cheese and ham – perfect for the sandwich. He picks the food, then finds a loaf of bread on the shelf and opens one of the drawers to get a knife to cut it. There is a curiously shaped knife among the cutlery – a very long and curved one, with an intricately decorated hand and some Gothic letters on the blade. How did that get into his drawer? It is not a normal meat-carving knife; it looks more like a dagger. He picks it up to have a closer look.

 _His fingers freeze on the blade – it comes alive and seems to radiate a wave of terrifying cold, which burns him, as if a great electrical current run trough his body. He wants to drop the knife, but he cannot – it holds an awful fascination to him. The letters on the blade are barely legible; he has to strain his eyes to tell one letter from the other. It is a German word, it seems. A name. He reads it, finally, and suddenly darkness clouds his mind. He is blind and deaf, and yet at the same time bizarrely alert to sounds and visions that come at him. That name, spoken in so many tones from derision to awe and fear. His name, it seems. That other name, which he heard before – the Dark One. Also his name, it seems. The faces, too – faces of the people in town, all the faces he knows; yet they are somehow different. They look at him, and they call on him, and they fear him and shun him. The faces of the women in his dream. The face of the boy falling into the pit of green light. The face of the girl that he lost. His own face – changed, horrible, distorted, and majestically ugly. All the bits and pieces of unremembered other life come at him, all at once, and they overwhelm him. He sees a life, a terrible and strange life that seems to be his. He sees unlimited power and deepest humiliation. He sees great vanity and infinite sadness. Yet he cannot understand or remember any of it – this life, that seems to be his, just engulfs him like a huge cloud of dark mist. He cannot see anything clearly, and he cannot escape, and he feels as if he is dying – right here on the spot._

As from a distance, he hears himself gasping – with an incredible effort he starts getting back to reality. The mist dissolves, only just, so that he can see his own hands clutching the blade. He is cutting his palms, he grips it so tightly – there are drops of blood on the kitchen counter. His fingers constrict, it is literally impossible to let go of the knife, yet, with an audible cry of pain, he manages to drop it.

The world around him slowly returns to normal. There is grey light behind the window. There is the sound of his shallow, gasping breathing. There are his hands, gripping the table, smearing it with blood. There is the bloodstained knife, lying innocently on the polished wood between his trembling fingers.

He doesn't know what to make of what just happened to him. He doesn't even want to understand it. He fears that if he starts thinking of that vision of his, it will return and crush him. It was so much more powerful than anything he felt before. So much more painful.

And so very real.

Slowly, controlling each movement, he takes his hands off the table, turns them palms up so as not to drip blood on the floor, and moves to the sink. He washes the blood off, and examines the cuts. Strangely, they seem very small; they look half-healed already. He shakes his head – thinking about _that_ is not possible, either.

His fingers still tremble. He must look like a ghost. He can't even think of facing people in town – not today. Yet he must – he cannot miss his duties, for to do it, to stay at home, hiding from the world, would mean sinking into his madness completely. And he feels he has to get to his shop – if anything in the world can calm him down after what just happened, it is being there, in his shelter, in his happy place…

Getting a grip of himself, he gets back to making that sandwich. He picks a normal knife, trying not to look at the horrid curved blade, still resting on the counter where he dropped it. He wraps the sandwich in foil, and puts it in a basket along with a bottle of orange juice. He will put the basket in the car. Taking the car is a necessity now – he cannot walk the town in his condition.

Slowly and painfully, basket in one hand, his cane in the other, he walks to the basement, glancing at the spinning wheel with alarm – he saw it in his vision, too, he was spinning it, and he has to resist the odd urge to sit and check if he really knows how to do it. He walks on to the garage and drives the car out.

The day passes as in a dream. He visits people, he collects the debts, yet he has no idea what he tells them and what they answer. They don't exist for him, not really – they are just shadows of the people he saw in that awful vision, and he wonders why they are co calm, so contented with their life. Don't they feel that something is wrong? Don't they see in his face that something is wrong _with him_?

But of course they don't. Nothing is wrong for them or with them, so they feel no reason to look closer. All that is happening is happening to him – only to him. He is the only one in trouble, for he is utterly insane. He imagined – he _saw_ – a complete alternative life for himself and for all people around him. And that other life, for him, is more real than the one he lives. This is madness.

And he has no one to ask for help.

By the time he reaches his shop, he is exhausted. He parks the car at the front and walks in. Once inside, he does feel marginally better. The place is lovely, for him. It is cozy and dark and sheltering and… real. For the first time in the day something in the world that surrounds him feels more real than the life in the vision. Or just as real as the life in the vision, at least.

He walks around the place uncertainly, choosing some task for himself. He has to get back to repairing the book, which he damaged yesterday, but he is not sure he is up to that today – his hands are still unsteady. So he picks an oval brass casket from one of the shelves – it needs cleaning, and that is just the sort of work he is able to do today. It is perfect, actually – mindless, repetitive, soothing task, which will hopefully make his mind go blank.

He stands behind the counter, opening the casket to check if it is empty before taking in into the inner office to start cleaning, when he hears the doorbell ring at the entrance.

Regina comes into the shop and gives him an angry look.

'I am not happy', she says.

He really has no time for her now. Or rather he does have the time; he just doesn't have the energy to talk to her.

And he doesn't want to concentrate on her, for fear of remembering a different Regina from his vision.

So he tries to brush her off. 'I believe Dr. Hopper's office is down the street'.

That sounded rude, but the girl pays no heed. 'I don't want to talk to him, I want to talk to you'.

Her voice, the very tone of it – arrogant, demanding… It sounds so familiar. It stirs something very… real in his mind. For a second, despite all his mental efforts to banish the image, he does see her as he saw her this morning while holding the dagger – regal, as befits her name… Anyway, he sees that it will be impossible to get rid of her – this woman always gets what she wants, whatever the price.

He sighs. 'Very well, Madam Mayor, what is it that you want to talk about?'

And, uttering these simple enough words, he suddenly feels an urge to say something different. The name 'Your Majesty' nearly escapes from his lips.

God, what is the matter with him?! He must control himself. He must do something to stop this madness…

And, just at the moment when he is on the verge of collapse, turning away from her so as not to let her see panic in his eyes, she says: 'This town… This isn't the deal we made'.

He turns to face her, shaken.

 _He sees her face, the same face, but different. He sees her not in his shop, but in the dark dungeon that is his prison. He is looking at her from behind the bars, and he sneers at her. 'Do we have a deal?' That's his voice. He asks that question._

 _She gives him an angry glare, but nods._

That is one of his visions. The visions brought on by his utter and indisputable madness. Yet here she is, standing in the middle of his shop, dressed in ordinary clothes, in broad daylight, speaking of the 'deal' they have made. She speaks as if it were real, that vision of his.

Can it be that he is _not_ mad? Can it be that there is something beyond ordinary going on in their lives, and she knows it – or feels it – just as he does?

No, it can't be. It is impossible. No one was in the dungeon, no one made any deals. It is all confusion, some sort of misunderstanding. He must be reading a completely insane meaning into her perfectly innocent words.

'I am sorry, I don't know what you are talking about', he says, and it is true, actually. Yet he is surprised how calm his voice sounds.

She gives him a long piercing look, searching for something in his face, trying to see in his eyes something that is not there. He tries to look as blank as possible. He doesn't want her to realize that he is crazy, not now, not ever.

Finally, she says slowly: 'You don't, do you?' She sounds doubtful, surprised and slightly disappointed. Then, unable to control her temper, unhappy with not getting what she came for, she continues with her original trouble – she still has to tell him what bothers her, even though she is convinced that he can't help. 'I was supposed to be happy here!'

He reels with the force of another vision – or is it a memory? He recognizes the tone of her voice, again, and 'remembers' his own exasperation with the silly girl trying to win at any price, not realizing that happiness cannot be gained by manipulation and tricks. There is no magic in the world that can make you happy.

So he manages a smile – ironic, as was the one he smiled then: 'Forgive me, but you are the Mayor'. Oh, the temptation to say 'the Queen', just to see how she reacts to the blatant demonstration of his madness! 'You are the most powerful woman in the town. What is there to be unhappy about?'

She is on the brink of angry tears.

'Everyone in this town does exactly what I want them to!'

Oh, this is so like her, real or imaginary! She is never, ever happy with what she's got…

He chuckles: 'And that's a problem?'

She checks his near-hysterical merriment with a furious look: 'Well, they do it because they have to, not because they want to!' She pauses, searching for the word that would make him understand. 'It's not _real_ '.

And that does it. She said the word, the very word that is the key to his delusion. Nothing here seems real to him. His head is full of imaginings and visions. And he thought he was mad – naturally, for there is no other way to describe a dissociation with reality such as his but to call it madness.

Yet here she stands, looking at him gloomily, confirming that he is not, after all, mad. There _is_ some other reality apart from the one that surrounds them. There is some other life in which they knew each other and were different. She knows about it, too. She longs for it, too.

And yet, if that is true, therefore the things he 'remembers' about her are true, too. And the main thing he remembers about Regina is that he must not trust her.

So, either to conceal his madness or to protect his secrets (even though he doesn't really remember them himself), he makes a poker face even blanker then before and asks politely: 'I am sorry, what exactly is it you want?'

She gives him another long look, very disappointed. 'Nothing you can give me'.

Then she leaves.

He stares after her, trying to digest what just happened.

It very well may be that Regina just saved his life – saved him from inevitable descent into insanity and despair. He thought he was gone, lost in the vast and dangerous darkness of his mind. Yet she unwittingly let him know that there is some truth in his madness. Now he has a chance to get to grips with his life, somehow. He still has no idea where the images that haunt him come from, or what they mean. Yet at least he knows that they are not just products of his imagination. They have some foundation in reality, even though in a different one. There is a reason for them, though he doesn't know it.

And as everything in the world happens by design, the reason will reveal itself, eventually. He'll just have to wait for it, just as he waits for his debtors to pay.

He knows how to do that, he knows how to wait. You just live from day to day, and one day what was meant to be finally comes to pass.

With a sigh, he gets back to his immediate task – cleaning the casket. He will do this today, and he will start on the book tomorrow. He will fill his days – well, his ever-repeating day, – with small and pleasant things, nice repetitive tasks. He will have patience.

He will do his best to be at peace with himself.

He finishes his cleaning, closes the shop and drives to visit his remaining debtors – Granny at her hotel and the manager of the bar, 'The Rabbit Hole'. He then drives home and gets through his evening routine of undressing and drinking a glass of cognac, and goes to sleep.

He doesn't touch the dagger on the kitchen table; the very thought of it is abhorrent, and he is in no condition to handle the effects of another vision today. Luckily, there is no need to touch it; it will be back in the drawer in the morning.

There are certain advantages to living in a time-loop.

Three hundred and fifty nine grey mornings later he wakes up, gets out of bed, closes the window, not forgetting to greet his loyal friend, the white rose in the garden, showers and shaves, and then, preparing to dress, opens his wardrobe. Reaching for the tie, he realizes that, if he is determined to stick to his routine of not wearing the same tie as he did the 'day before', there is no choice but to put on the very dark metallic grey one with very small golden spots – the one he hasn't worn for a very long time. Since his visions started, in fact. He looks at it, smiling a crooked smile, and counts the ties on the rack. There are many, many ties there – the ones he had to start with, the ones he brought back from the dress-shop – after leaving them overnight in _his_ shop; for what stayed the night there, comes to gain a permanent existence in his ever-repeating life, he has learned that a long time ago and accepted it as a part of his life's generally odd pattern. It is unbelievable, but it seems that he has 365 ties here, all together. And he has been changing them every day. The fact that he came to the tie he has worn already means that a year has passed.

The whole year of similar days. Days filled with visions and fears and hopes and thoughts and longing for things that once were and that will never be. Things real or imagined – who cares which is which, if the imagined ones hurt more than the real ones? Days through which he willingly embraced his dreams, even the dreams that brought him pain, and learned so very much about himself – built a complete picture of his fantastical other life, actually. And what a colorful, interesting life it had been. He wished he really could have had all that, really could have been this person he saw in his visions: caring and sneering, cowardly and determined, wise and foolish, feared and loved, exuberant and sad, hopeful and desperate, ugly and magnificent, despised and revered, helpless and omnipotent, flamboyant and patient, scheming and blind, green and… golden. Days when he was so lost and frustrated by his routine that he lapsed into panic of madness again, only to emerge with the conviction that there _is_ some foundation to what he imagines – a conviction even crazier than his ravings, yet so reassuring. Days when he was not as patient as he promised himself he would be, and crushed things around him, only to punish himself with repairing them afterwards. Days when he touched the chipped cup again and again, tormenting himself, and was sometimes granted a vision of the girl that doesn't exist in any reality. Days patiently endured and, to some extent, enjoyed.

The year has passed, and some things… changed. The book of fairy-tales is mended, and he has given it to the schoolteacher – perhaps one day there will be among her pupils a bright lad that would eventually enjoy it.

He looks back at those hundreds of similar days, and wonders if the weather will ever change. He wonders if the rose in his garden will ever bloom or die. He wonders if the reason to his suspended existence will ever reveal itself.

He puts on the grey tie with golden spots, and goes about his business. It is a pity that the events of the day come undone over the night – just imagine him collecting all that money over all those repeated days! Such accumulated wealth. Yet, as his imagined other self often says, it is not about the gold. It is all about getting what you really wanted. And that never can be measured in gold. The price you pay for magic is never… material.

Anyway, it is a good thing that he was inclined to wear a different tie every day. In a life in which all days are the same, that can be used as a kind of… time-marker. A sort of a personal calendar, the ordinary kind being useless in his situation. So today is a kind of a New Year day, then. The moment when things have come full circle, and have to start all over again.

He is amazed that he did that thing with putting on new ties every day, instinctively, and amused that one of his main oddities has served him so well and turned into an advantage. Now that he noticed that, he might as well do it consciously.

He is careful to stick to that, afterwards – he carefully picks a different tie every morning till the year runs out. It is amazing that this game, which he plays with himself, continues to entertain him, though the years go on and on, and turn to decades.

Ten thousand, two hundred and twenty changes of the tie later comes a day when his clothes are arranged around a narrow silk black tie, which he usually wears with a checkered black and white shirt – one of his most daring and surprising combinations, the shirt being the risky element, of course.

The day goes on as it always does, without any significant events. It is business as usual.

He doesn't wonder if the weather will ever change anymore, or if his leg will ever stop aching dully, or if his life would ever get any meaning into it. He stopped thinking, a long time ago it seems. He just lives from day to day wearily, as if dragging his feet along a difficult and endless road.

He is not desperate, not any more. He is just deadly tired.

In the evening he pays his last money-collecting visit to Granny's Hotel. The old lady is not fighting with her granddaughter, for once. She is busy with a customer – a blond girl, not immediately familiar to him. Entering, he sees only her back, golden hair cascading down it, and hears her voice, husky and low, when she tells Granny her name, so it could be put in the register.

'Emma Swan'.

Emma.

 _Emma, Emma, Emma, Emma…_

 _His hand, green leathery and clawed, writing that name over and over again. Snow White's voice, saying shyly: 'Her name is Emma'._

 _Emma, Emma, Emma._

He stands still, listening to the rush of past and present and the future, colliding, watching the pieces of the puzzle fall in place, admiring the picture of the world becoming clear and balanced at last.

It is all true, then.

It was not madness. He did wonder, sometimes, if perhaps it was, after all... But no, no madness. It was – it is – his life. Real life, and it is about to resume soon.

The time-trap is nearly broken, the prison term served. The aim of his life is almost in his grasp. He will get his life back. He will get his son back. He will get magic back. He will get everything back…

Everything, except Belle.

She is gone. It is a certainty now, not just a feeling. But at least he knows that she existed, and he loved her, and was loved. _That_ was no illusion, and somehow it means a lot. And he remembers her name now, and that alone makes him so bitterly happy that he feels tears coming up to his eyes. He knows her name. He can repeat it – tormenting and soothing, as real as his flesh and blood. Not just a dream, then. Lost, irrevocably lost – yet real, for everything that has the power to hurt is real to us, and forever will be.

He checks the tears for now, though. There will be time for them, and he is sure they will come, when the whole enormity of what finally happened tonight will hit him. So many years of uncertainty and mind-killing grayness. So many years of complete isolation and darkness… All over know. That is something to drop a few tears about – tears of joy, or regret, or just sheer hysterical release of tension. But not yet – the time for tears has not come yet. He must not lose his face in front of the people. Not in front of the people who would soon remember who they are and who he is.

So he smiles warmly, surprising Granny no end by his friendliness, welcomes the girl to town, wishes her a pleasant stay and walks out of the hotel.

For a moment he stands in the street, looking up into the sky, feeling the memories wash over him, all of them welcome, even the darkest ones. They all are welcome, for they are confirming everything he hoped and feared, and they are letting him find his true self at last, the flashy trickster of his fantasies merging with the restrained gentleman of his present reality into a person that is, uniquely, himself.

He will walk home now, slowly, taking his time, ignoring bitter coldness of the night air, enjoying the fresh and sharp smell of the sea.

This is the night to enjoy it, for the weather will change soon, after all.

10


End file.
